Are we in a dystopian novel?

Today as I was walking the dog it struck me that all of us wearing masks look like many apocalypse books I have read and films that I have seen in my life. It gave me a strange feeling. Growing up in the era when 1984, Brave New world, Animal Farm, That Hideous Strength, and the later film Soylent Green were most read and watched is strange today. I saw 1984 pass by, the fear of the millennial crisis (which never happened) and many other milestones come and go (and by the way, where is my personal flying car?).

And yet, this very morning I could see the dystopian future right in front of me. Will this virus subside or do we have many more variants coming? Will we always be the people wearing masks to protect us from each other? Will we never be able to establish physical connections with people other than those in our immediate circle? Have we so damaged the earth, our home, that there is no choice but isolation? These are frightening questions and I hope the answers do not define the future for coming generations.

Here in this country we are so divided that I question our ability to work together for the good of us all. The rest of the world is also plagued with problems from starvation, war, and fanatical religious differences, that it seems hard to imagine everyone joining together to save us all before it is too late.

Having said all of this I still have hope that somehow, someway, we will find a way to move forward and live in a world without masks, both the physical ones we don for safety and the mental/emotional ones we put on for the same reason. I pray that my grandchildren and great grandchildren will live in that world and not the one I see now.