Its difficult to know whether to laugh or cry when going out to visit any of the shops that are open or even stop at the garage to fill the car.
Wherever we go, the plastic screens, barriers, floor lines and arrows that have now been upgraded to prefabricated and machine produced versions make it look like living in Lockdown and having Social Distancing imposed upon us by our peers is just the way that things have always been.
Shop assistants who used to smile and pass the time of day now growl and point the way. Security guards at supermarkets look and sound more menacing than the 7 foot burly body builder types that policed nightclub doorways in the Nineties ever were.
What should be worrying us all is the air of permanence with the way that this all now feels.
Social Distancing in this form is here to stay for a very long time.
Yet nobody seems to be concerned or asking questions about what the long term costs of this social policing and the rise of a police state will actually be.
Fear was weaponised by the Government to implement the Lockdown. It was used to facilitate Social Distancing measures that are impacting upon normal behaviour each and every day.
Once fear has been unleashed by causes that can be controlled, there is no way to contain the results and consequences of its growth.
It is easy to appreciate that many people now live in fear of Coronavirus.
This fear is and always was unnecessary. It is manufactured and a direct result of what the Government has done.
Fear affects everyone differently. Many will not realise that it affects their outward behaviour and the way they interact with others in what might be very profound ways.
Fear made real on the faces, in the words and actions of anyone who is afraid looks very different from the outside looking in. Outward appearances are rarely what the individual understands they are projecting outwards or is being seen by others on public display.
The anger, abruptness, lack of polite language or rudeness that we are witnessing on the part of the workers who serve or steward us is unlikely to be intentional at all.
Regrettably it is not how it is experienced.
The Social Distancing ‘guidelines’, equipment, infrastructure and the way those with responsibility for policing it at any level behave towards us is influencing the way that we all think.
We are being programmed to think that it is normal to be herded around and treated like an animal and to be viewed with suspicion as if we are guilty without the ability to ever be innocent again.
This is a dangerous combination for us all as a society. Because people are being actively and aggressively conditioned to think that it is ok and quite normal to treat others this way.
The Lockdown was a crazy idea that has caused more harm than good, made worse by politicians who lack vision and are terrified of seeing themselves as being out of control.
But where the impact of the recession, job losses and business closures the Government has caused through their actions will be possible to address with the right attitude and thinking on the part of good leaders over time, the damage that has been and is being done to us all at an emotional level with the irresponsible and unnecessary use of fear as a tool of choice for the Government is a completely different thing.
Adam Tugwell 