We have this silly conceit humans. Forgetting how lucky we are. Lucky for the simple ones. Where we woke up in the morning in our soft bed. We opened the fridge and it was full. Where we took the car to go to work. That we still live on one side of the planet, that everything still runs “normally”. As normal as possible, anyway.

In the western world we belong to, memory seems to be something that blurs easily. Those of us who have the basic goods, we take them for granted. We look from a distance at what is happening in the world, somewhere else, somewhere far from here. We believe – naively – that the Western world has outgrown barbarism – what an irony – and that there is something wrong with the peoples of the East still using war as a means of resolving their political differences. Maybe the low level of education, the lack of education or maybe their cultural peculiarities do not yet let them understand that war is not a solution?

All this we think, as we wait for the traffic light to turn green in order to move a few meters on an avenue full of traffic. Another normal day.

February 24, 2022 was such a normal day for the Ukrainians, when the first “bang” of the Russian attack was heard. One such, normal day was October 7, 2023 for Israelis, when members of Hamas attacked a Tel Aviv peace festival, killing innocent people. Who is to blame? However, not those who, in an instant, saw the life they had known disappear under fire and perished with it or were left behind, fighting for their lives every second, without a home, without that fragile “normalcy”, which, until a few minutes ago, seemed like solid reality.

And then a new normality is created, that of war

It’s scary, but true. It turns out that people can adapt to almost anything. At the beginning of a crisis it is the shock of the sudden that mobilizes everything almost automatically. It is in a world of urgency and alarm that the survival instinct operates. Everyday activities seem like a thing of the past, people leave their homes and carry their whole lives in their hands, getting on trains and moving away from the city or even the whole country.

At the same time, another big front is mobilizing: That of volunteers who, with the help of social media, organize guides, humanitarian aid, places to stay. “People are so united at first. They give huge amounts. They want to help in any way they can,” explains Anastasia Zamula, fashion stylist, regular contributor to Vogue Ukraine and volunteer in the Ukrainian war.

And then?

“The second year of the war is more difficult. The first year is mobilization. You are focused. All the regular issues of normal life are put on the shelf. But then you start to realize that this war is going to be a long story. Somehow you have to understand that life must go on“, she tells Vogue Nataliia Zaretska, military psychologist, which counsels wounded soldiers and people who have lived under Russian occupation and designs protocols for psychologists who work with veterans returning to civilian life.

The second phase of the war is characterized by one word: Endurance. Extraordinary measures such as volunteering and donating become part of the normal flow of people’s lives, such as paying taxes. The alarms of war become a constant familiar sound, and the movements that follow become almost automatic: People shut themselves in their houses and just wait for the sound to stop. Bursts during the night are just another noise that interrupts sleep. It looks like a nasty deadly game: In the sunlight, life seems to go on as normal, and in the dark the monster of war looms again and lets no one forget that this is not a “normal normality”.

Nevertheless, Nataliia says that accepting the new reality is vital. “If you spend the war waiting for it to end, all you will do is waste your time. If a Ukrainian family in Europe is waiting for the war to end before returning home, they need to understand that it could take years. The children may have grown up and when they return, they will find a changed society. It is utopian to think that life will return to what it was before».

Redefining happiness

“We all face mental problems. We are subjected to stress and incessant tensionAnastasia admits.

“Everyone is tired. But many are afraid to relax. When you stop, you feel worse, because then the thoughts come and you feel like you’re not helping as much as you can. But if you stop, you feel like you’re just going to collapseNataliia adds.

A mixture of necessity, obligation and determination is born of fatigue. And then something magical happens: “I think we have to learn to feel different things at the same time. You may worry about war, but you can also laugh at a funny moment. Let pain and joy co-exist,” writes Wendell Steavenson, war correspondent.

“There is a rule in psychology: We can use what we accept. Resilience is the result”, explains Nataliia.

No, war is not common and should not be common. Doom and death are never the answer. We are lucky not to know what response mechanisms one must develop to survive in a place at war. We have the luxury to “fight”, to claim for him something better, than our comfort and security. And we now have the opportunity to appreciate what until a while ago we took for granted, because this time we just happened to be on the “right” side of the planet.

But for how much?