There’s No Place Like Home

An attempt to decipher what Dorothy meant. Are humans just magnificent or are we at the mercy of disaster to show us how to use the resources we already possess?

There’s no place like home. Home is what you long for after a busy day, a tough test or even a heartbreak. Home is where we feel safe and loved. Last year a tornado of sorts blew us into a new reality, but unlike Dorothy, we are still in Kansas…

If you really think about it a pandemic has quite a lot in common with a tornado. They both uproot your life, devastate society, crowd hospitals, glue eyes to news channels and force families to take shelter from the natural disaster. Dorothy had it easy, she was transported to a magical land with talking lions and flying monkeys, for us we were stuck in our homes with creatures much scarier and vicious — family members. To Dorothy there is no place like home, but to us the only place is home.

We have been forced to adapt and innovate to gain some sort of stability in a time when we were unable to work in the way we wanted. Why were we able to adapt so quickly? In a matter of weeks schools and companies utilized technology that equipped them with the ability to work and learn entirely remotely. Are humans just magnificent or are we at the mercy of disaster to show us how to use the resources we already possess?

The Wizard of Oz

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy meets a few companions in her quest to return home. She came across a scarecrow desperately needing a brain, a Tinman yearning for a heart and a Lion with a lack of courage. The group banded together determined to receive their wishes from the mighty Wizard of Oz.

Spoiler Alert — The wizard was a fraud, a groggy old man hiding behind a light show playing the part the people of Oz thought he should. He was not able to provide the quartet with their wishes, but pointed out that they already possessed all that they had wished for.

What’s the lesson in this? Should we not hide behind a façade? Should we make friends with scarecrows and trashcans? No, we need to realize that there is no place like home and there’s greater motivation than the need to get home.

The Need For Home

During World War 2, one of the darkest times in human history, humans collaborated to provide ground-breaking innovations. In the medical field alone, research by Dr. Howard Florey and Andrew Moyer lead to the effective use of penicillin to battle infections suffered by soldiers. Scientists had produced the groundwork for vaccines to protect against the flu, but only during World War 2 did a team of virologists develop a licensed flu vaccine. In less than two years a vaccine was developed to assist the soldiers fighting in Europe against the invisible enemy known as the flu. The need to win the war and bring the soldiers home generated the necessary innovation to meet that aim. The work from these virologists formed the basis of a lot of the vaccines used today and has become imperative during the pandemic.

The first email was sent on March 26, 1976. Skype was launched in 2003, FaceTime 2011, Zoom 2013 and Teams 2017. We’ve been able to make video calls for quite some time, corporations and schools have had everything they needed to function. Nonetheless, we needed a pandemic to force us to implement the technology we already had at our fingertips. The pandemic has ruined our economy and life as we know it, but in typical human fashion we tend to innovate and prosper out of the darkest times.

We now face a new normal with 72% of workers wanting a hybrid model according to a survey conducted by BBC and it is estimated that 30% of workers will continue with the work-from-home model post-pandemic. Online courses are becoming ever more prevalent in the e-learning space with anyone being able to learn additional skills they might not have had access to in school or university curriculums. We are capable to be productive and add new skills to our arsenal all from the comfort of our homes.

We Are Dorothy’s Companions

Dorothy had it easy. When you actually think about the story you realize that the world has much more in common with her companions.

The scarecrow wanted a brain. During the pandemic our entrepreneurs were on top of their game stimulating the ability to collaborate on project irrespective of borders. We saw widespread adoption of Zoom and Teams with corporations using the technology for their annual shareholder meetings, companies switching to hybrid models and even people running marathons in their gardens. The world’s scientists manufactured vaccines in record time when corporations realized the inflexibility and inefficiency of certain bureaucratic governance structures. We used our brains.

The Tinman wanted a heart. Parents got to know their children in ways they were never able to when they rushed to their daily 9 to 5’s. Children got to see the hard work their parents put into their careers and families had the opportunity to talk to each other and have dinner around a table like in “the good old days”. The world learnt that actions have consequences and that irresponsibility could lead to the ruin of families. We supported our local small businesses and families who lost loved ones. We proved we had a heart.

The Lion wanted courage. Front line workers risked their lives to save others. Teachers and parents risked their lives to ensure that children received proper education. The world showed courage by adapting to the new normal and making it work as far as possible. Some would argue people had to show courage to not smoke or drink. We displayed courage.

The Wizard showed Dorothy and her companions that they already possessed that which they so desperately wanted.

Push for Home

We own our needs just as we own the tools to meet them. You don’t need a groggy old fraud of a wizard to point it out to you. We can work from home, we can study from home, we can do anything from home. Looking at history we should deduct that we get through tough times and we might not always return to the exact same circumstances, but it might be better than before.

I imagine when Dorothy tapped her shoes 3 times, she did not arrive at a house that was in the exact same state as she left it, but she was better off anyway. Her home might have damage from the tornado, but the lessons from her journey on the Yellow Brick Road showed her what home truly is to her.

There is no place like home because whenever something removes us from our home we relentlessly fight to get it back. The journey we embark on to revert back to our idea of “home” provides us with the drive we need to become a better and more advanced civilization. That is why there truly is no place like home.

You are not at the mercy of disaster, but rather at the mercy of the concept which we hold so dear — Home.

This does not constitute as financial or life advice, read my story and don’t be an idiot 😉