I’ve been thinking about what life will look like ‘afterwards’, the thing people are calling the New Normal. Wouldn’t it be good if this New way was better than the Old way?

What made me wonder about this was a lockdown re-reading of one of my all time favourite books. John Steinbeck wrote many wonderful things but, for me, Cannery Row is almost a parable on the glorious faults in all of us. Consider this small excerpt:

“The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success.”

So from now on, let’s be kind. Let’s be nice. Let’s be honest and generous.

Let’s be failures.