THE PM has announced the end of the state of emergency in a fortnight. Funny videos about extreme, happy reactions to being let out of jail are circulating, but I worry, and I imagine others do too, that the experience of being free will not turn out to be quite what we hope for.

Personally, I feel a bit scared of what is to come in a post-lockdown, on-the-way-to-being post-covid world, which sadly could well be worse than the pre-covid one.

At the beginning of the pandemic, in the panic and fear the virus engendered, communities and neighbours pulled together in the face of a common enemy, but as we became accustomed to the new straitjacketed life, our ugly human flaws resurfaced.

The opportunity for introspection bore no fruit. The gurus had hailed the time to spend alone or with just those close to us as a big chance for us to re-examine our lives and the patterns we follow and to arrive at better self-knowledge, and eventually to lead us to being 'nicer' people.

Actually, the experience has made us more selfish. It has been a wasted opportunity, for the most part.

Empathy - the ability to understand and share the feelings of others - is extremely important to us as human beings. Being capable of imagining ourselves in other people's shoes is the key to better human understanding; yet even after covid showed us just how interconnected we are, even across continents, we have not been able to bring that realisation to bear upon our relations with others. We are only as strong as the weakest link and our very existence depends upon us acting in that knowledge.

At the global level, governments have behaved badly, grabbing more vaccines than they needed for their countries, leaving the poorer countries out in the cold, as if we were not dealing with an indiscriminate contagion. At national level, politicians used the pandemic for their own political ends, as continues to happen here in Trinidad and Tobago. Our Opposition, intent on trying to secure power, as is the mandate of every political party, has waged war on every aspect of TT governance and structures, regardless of the negative impact it might have on the already unsettled citizens.

But it is at the personal level that our inhumanity is most felt.

Recently, an inattentive young driver damaged the front of my car. He was unapologetic and never asked if I had been injured. In fact, he did not stop and I had to race behind him.

Later, I went to the nearby, well-refurbished police station to make a report. I drove down the unmarked entrance to the underground carpark. I had noticed a private SUV on one side with its engine running. I circled looking for a spot and eventually, with some effort, got into the only vacant, very tight one. Once in, I saw the SUV drive away from the much easier spot, but I stayed put. I locked the car and walked the length of the carpark to the exit, where the SUV was now stationed.

A tall, well-built man addressed me uncouthly: 'Are you a police officer?'

I had to move the car to another unmarked carpa