Eszter Aletta Hevesi
In Hungary we have been in quarantine for more than two weeks. Since it started, everybody has been craving some kind of exercise, even though they had a lot of opportunities beforehand. The enclosedness has a major effect on our physical and mental health. For example, people start to get deep into their thoughts, just like I did.
The human body has been exciting my imagination for a long time now. We took for granted that we can walk on the banks of the Zagyva or run in the Tiszaliget. Now that it is taken away from us, it feels like we are injured and we can’t do what we want. We are trapped in some way. Before, you didn’t think about any action that you did everyday in the interval between getting out of bed and falling asleep with your eyes closed. Most of your everyday habits are “coded” in your brain. You don’t need to think about the motions you make before you get out of bed or how you make coffee in the morning. Walking is an even more ordinary motion for you. You just do it in a precise way without thinking about how you will put one foot in front of the other.
You saw many people, cars, plants, trees when you could go out. They are the part of the everyday sights through the window of a car or a bus. A long time ago there wasn’t any of that. It is interesting to think about that four billion years ago the Earth didn’t exist in the form we see it nowadays. There weren’t any people on the surface, nor even any plants or cars. And now here we are in the middle of overpopulation and Covid-19. We know that we brought it on ourselves. We took everything for granted on the Earth, while it is a rare blessing for all of us. We don’t respect any of the species who conquered Earth before us, but we should. We should be grateful for every little bit we have on Earth and in our lives.
At this time we should appreciate that we live in a civilized society and that most of us have a body capable of achieving wonders with its brain, which can create magnificent buildings and understand and react to others.