Stopping the world

I have long wondered what the world was like without the frenetic activity of post-modern life.
I have wished for the world to "stop". I have wished to be from the 19th century or even earlier.

I do not want these things because I dislike where the world is now. I am not reacting to the "ugliness" of the world; I am not hoping to find a better world in the past. I am just curious, really, what the world is like when the voices and actions of humans don't dominate . I ask what is a blue sky, a sky where no airplanes fly, no contrails appear, no jet fuel combusting.
I am curious what is the sound of silence, where no trucks roar, no Jake brakes tremble, no sirens wail, no merchants bark their offers, what is an ocean devoid of tankers and cruise ships...?

I am curious about the lack of convenience at fingertips, inability to shop for consumer goods, no stopping for beer or coffee with a few friends, the slowing down and frustrating of instant gratification, the long waiting for spare parts and even letters from far away...

We built a world that roars, that stamps on, that dominates and destroys the natural. The ground of our being is littered with the effects of our civilization. The fumes we inhale are the gasses of our success as a materialist animal. What Greta said and all those who care say still...

Irony of a pandemic that has shown all of us the answers to my curiosity and questions, the fulfillment of the wishes to see it empty and stopped, the world braked, the end of modernity. Unexpected return to the middle ages, but electronic, digital and Zoomed in on. Our plague has reduced us or returned us to clerical forms, quotidiana has beaten novelty.

What do I say now? What more is there to dream of when the world has been returned to it's cage and society is prisoner to itself? Closed in, locked down, quarantined; we monks, like monkeys in our cages, revert to ancient customs, family and friendship, gardening and reading, writing our thoughts down and looking up at the sky for rain or sun, to judge the clouds and the color of the grey, we bake and cook and can again, we are learning who we are without the roar and din...