March 1999/March 2020

This is an outlier edition of The Sociology of Business. It is the end of what feels like a very long week, and although I dislike confessionals and find them juvenile and self-absorbed, I decided to break my usual publishing schedule and re-share something that, in its original shorter version, resonated with a lot of those who read it.

I have a past experience of an ominous, looming and all-encompassing disaster that may help some of you go through this.

Starting in March of 1999, NATO bombed Belgrade, where I am from, for 89 days. The situation was similar to COVID-19 pandemics in terms of having to grasp a life-threatening situation and of the mandate to stay at home.

After the initial shock, patterns emerged. Not unlike Kübler-Ross stages of grief, they follow and interact each other.

1. A constant stream of information ceases to be useful and becomes counter-productive. It does nothing to inform us, and it only increases the sense of helplessness and anxiety. If I remember correctly, this phases comes a week or so in. I believe that a lot of us are right now at the beginning of it.

2. Human brain inevitably starts craving different stimulation. Daily news slowly recede in the background. They don’t go away, but become a soundtrack of our lives. We start doing and thinking about other things. We may…