If anything, COVID-era restrictions should teach us that we need even more “normality” than we had before the pandemic. Fewer Zooms, fewer screens, less time on Netflix and YouTube and social media. Our social life had been too digitized already. Socializing isn’t really “optional” for human sanity: Friends, family, co-religionists, and even the occasional enemy and rival are necessary for your well-being. Even if you are an introvert. The digital life and COVID in particular have a tendency to put people too deep into their own heads. People dwell on and overthink the “likes” and “hearts” and timing of a digital ellipsis responding to their text messages, or the pace of responses to emails. Real relationships are conducted with the tones of our voice, with body language. With micro-expressions of disgust, pleasure. With movements of the eyes or lips that express confusion or that acknowledge the presence of sexual interest before any mind in the room could apprehend it. You know: REAL LIFE with its hazards, dangers, and thrills. I’ve started to try to undermine the last bits of public-health theater in our lives. When my son’s preschool asks me the health questionnaire in the morning, I explain that no, I’ve not been in contact with anyone who is quarantined. But to each teacher who appears, I add, “We’re living on the other side of all this now,” and try to gauge their level of relief to be able to agree with me, or their relative disgust and fear.