A recent cnn.com article about the coronavirus pandemic opened by stating, "[T]ry to take heart in one discomfiting fact: Things are most likely never going 'back to normal.'"  (Yes, who doesn't "take heart" at "discomfiting" things?  Anybody at CNN have a dictionary?)

The piece mocked "back to normal" as a "well-worn phrase" that people "like to lean on," nothing more than simple-minded "nostalgia for the world of January" when "life more closely resembled our past decades."  Perhaps, the author(s) mused, people yearn for things to "get back to normal" as "a bid to show control, to revert to a time when change was not so universally imposed upon us."  You think?  It is, among other things, a desire to get out from under the heel of a tyrannical government and recoup one's constitutional, God-given rights.

The post suggests that those who hold jobs will continue to work from home, that shaking hands and embracing others will be things of the past, and that the majority of our interactions will be virtual rather than in person.  It infers that many jobs are not coming back and that certain relatives might just have to continue to die alone, our goodbyes put on hold forever.  It cites Thomas Davenport, the president's distinguished professor of information technology and management at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.  The professor states: "Politicians who pretend that 'normal' is just around the corner are fooling themselves or their followers, or perhaps both."  It went on to cite another Davenport remark: "People who suffer tragedies eventually return to their previous happiness level."  Pretty sure that's not always the case, Tommy — especially as regards those who once lived in a free society and have had their freedoms taken from them suddenly and capriciously...and, if this CNN article is correct, permanently.

The post notes that people who don't quickly adapt to change tend to believe that what they remember as "normal" will return someday and therefore delay modifying their outlook.  (I love how leftists frequently put "normal" in quotes, as if it were the most preposterously unknowable word in the English language.)  Professor Davenport opined that those who refuse to wear masks may be guilty of "normalcy bias," the article states, "since they perceive this intrusion into [their] lives as a passing fad they don't need to embrace."  Translation: You do need to embrace it, so just deal with it.  Forever.  But do we really want to permanently live in a society where a petite young woman is tased and arrested by a policeman for not wearing a facial mask at a sparsely attended outdoor sports event?

The piece says that "permanently severing ties with January is not necessarily a bad thing," according to psychologists.  In fact, "[t]he danger comes from hankering for normalcy again, rather than getting on with working out how to deal with whatever is ahead" (emphases mine).  What is "normal," after all?  Leave your freedoms, your dignity, your religion, and your lonely relatives behind.  See, it's not so bad, is it?  You can take heart and worship us, instead.  Because, you know, we progressives have your best interest in mind.  "Arbeit macht frei, ja?"

The article eerily concludes that "January is long gone, and it's not coming back.  And, psychologists will tell you, that's only bad if you can't come to terms with it."

It's "only bad if you can't come to terms with it"?  One could say that about anything.  The Holocaust.  Slavery.  Painful rectal itch.

Or CNN.