A Shovelful of Sh** (Or a study of human behaviour exacerbated by a global pandemic)

Yesterday I was out for a run. It was a glorious day, the sky was blue, the birds were singing, and except for the peculiarity of the times we are living in (pre-post-COVID-19?) there was much to feel grateful for.

Then suddenly, jolting me out of my peaceful reveries, came the aggressive voice of a man. He had a shovel.

“Bloody dog-walkers, they let their dogs do their sh** on my front lawn. And now they go and park wherever they please. Two of them parked in that lay-by over there, see? That’s where I’m going to chuck this pile of sh**.”

I didn’t know to reply. I think I smiled good-naturedly and made some sympathetic comment. But inside I was thinking, I’m sure you’re over-reacting to this. I walked on a bit and realised that the ‘front lawn’ he was talking about (as there is a gate separating his driveway and gardens from the cycle path) were two small patches of grass, about two-metres long each, to which he had probably staked claim as they were in front of his gate.

I’m not saying dog-owners should let their dogs do their excretions wherever they please. There are poo-bags, bins and long sticks to move said excretions into more suitable locations. But, especially given the climate of our times, surely you don’t need to be so aggressive about something as minor as a few dog poos.

I’m part of a Facebook group for the residents of the village we are living in. It’s 50% lovely photos of the countryside, people selling things or giving away free stuff (yay!), and 50% people moaning about other people. Isn’t that what us Brits do best? We love to moan, especially about our fellow human-beings.

Although, having lived abroad for six years, I can say with quite a bit of confidence that moaning isn’t specific to the British population. I rather think it’s part of our human condition. In a way, it unites us and brings us together, this shared enthusiasm for judging every move others make.

During this pandemic, I’ve noticed that our village Facebook group has become even more poisonous than usual. It’s full of old biddies writing paragraphs of spiteful prose about their observations of other inhabitants in the village. Let’s look at a typical exchange.

Lucinda: I can’t believe the number of parents that are sending their children back to school on Monday. You’d think they want their elderly relatives to die.

Karen comments on post: I hope they die from COVID-19 themselves.

Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m trying to say. People have become so hostile. You get the impression that many people are using all this extra time to sit in their balconies with their binoculars and keep journals about the comings-and-goings of all their neighbours. Then, if someone steps a foot out of line, they can be publicly humiliated.

Let’s go back to the car-parking incident that poo-man from the beginning of my post was referring to. Now, we all know that new government guidelines now permit people to travel to ‘outdoor open spaces irrespective of distance’ (providing they return home within the same day). We also know that many public car parks haven’t been opened yet. It stands to reason that people are going to have to find other places to park their cars.

Let me be clear; I’m not advocating this mass ‘let’s all hurry to the beach on Saturday afternoon when everyone else will be there’ mentality that seems to have cropped up. But I can understand people’s desire to take advantage of the relaxing of the guidelines which (I’m sure we can all agree) have been somewhat wishy-washing from the beginning here in England.

So parking your car in a lay-by, which isn’t someone else’s property (it certainly didn’t belong to poo-man, even though his house was only a few metres away from it); well, I just don’t think it justifies a poo-shower.

We’ve probably all been a little guilty of this outright or private judgement of other people’s interpretation of following the rules over the past few weeks. I know I have, especially at the beginning, when it was all new, and (for me) fear was at its strongest. I would see a group of three teenagers walking together and think to myself, “I hope you can prove you’re all from the same family, you group of absolute morons. Or maybe next time you should take out metre sticks when you go for a walk. Don’t you have any respect for your grandmothers and THE LAW???”

You see, I suspect that when it comes down to it, this moaning and judging each other is because deep down we’re all scared, even just a little, and we’re clutching on to any means possible to regain a sense of control.

Putting others down can make us feel like we’re on the moral high ground, and perhaps it gives us an extra false sense of security. Or maybe we’re scared of being the ones that other people will write Facebook posts about.

In any case, it’s an ugly part of being human, and one we would do well to work on in ourselves. Perhaps what we need to combat it with is a good dose of compassion and respect. Starting with having some compassion and respect for ourselves, because however we are feeling and coping during this pandemic is valid. COVID-19 has never happened to any of us before.

Then, once we have compassion for ourselves, we can start to look around us and have compassion for everyone else, too. Those young kids out and about on bikes? Maybe they’re actually all from the same household, desperate to get away from their parents’ constant bickering.

The two families heading down to the beach on a Saturday lunchtime for a picnic? Perhaps they’ve felt so lonely with their individual mental illnesses during this time, that just being around others…. even if it’s two metres apart… and getting a taste of some kind of normality, will them bring them back from the edge.

You don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life. They could be facing job uncertainty, financial worries, fear of losing loved ones. Maybe they have older relatives in care homes that they’re anxious about. Maybe they’re anxious about catching the virus themselves. The fear has been all around us, perpetrated by the media. Everyone has been trying to get by. Everyone has just been doing their best.

So next time you want to throw a shovelful of dog sh** around, try looking at the bigger picture.