Those who look around with a wider perspective notice how our shared information space is slowly filling with messages that say: listen, let's slow down and return to a simpler — or, if you prefer, more normal — way of living. A life before the wild rise of social media and the digital age. A life that worked more naturally, guided by common sense.

"Children do not need quality time, they need you to be normal," Keiti Lipp wrote in an opinion piece in Delfi, urging parents to let their children grow into people in peace instead of following social calendars, logistics, vacation planning and constant rushing around. In short: less conscious effort and more ordinary being.

My mother‑in‑law is a complete masterclass in this — she makes her carrot and potato rows, and the small grandchild works alongside her. The child sits between the rows in the soil, has some adult tools and participates in the process with full seriousness. She is simply part of a natural, normal life.

A successful entrepreneur suddenly announces that food should not be thrown away just because the date has arrived, since it is usually edible for several days after the "best before" mark.

Looking at statistics, Estonians are among the European average in food waste. Strange. In the 1990s our stores were empty, there was poverty, even hunger. Does memory really last so little, I wonder. I do not know hunger, but wasting food has always been taboo. The return of that old normal — we do not waste food — would be welcome.

Social media feeds show more and more posts reflecting a calm life. A sunrise without any event. Just being, one says. Another posts a photo of an old house with smoke rising from the window. It comes with a long ode to the joys of the smoke sauna. A third explains recent experiences with the new global trend, soft hosting.

It is a way of hosting guests where everything happens spontaneously, without major preparations or stress. People simply gather to be together. So this old normal is being normalized too. Or at least in the 1990s it was the norm. People visited each other. Suddenly, without warning, one or another acquaintance would appear in the yard and settle happily on the grass with a cake and maybe something else.

The embarrassed hosts wiped their hands on their overalls and forced a smile. The awkwardness lasted only a moment. Soon came the cheerful: "Come on in!" Work clothes were swapped for better ones, dust wiped off the table and the gold‑rimmed dishes taken out of the cupboard. After all, these were dear guests. People sat, talked, maybe exchanged a few words in the kitchen about how the work now remained unfinished. Later, when the guests had left, no one complained about the undone work. They felt joy from the time spent together and the shared news. Humans are social creatures.

We need others from time to time to move forward. It has always been so, and it is especially nice when such meetings happen naturally. If we now need a funny new term for it, so be it. It is good if this old normal is normalized again.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has been consistently promoting forests for quite some time. Yes! Not only scientific pieces but also engaging stories about how being in the forest has changed a writer's work or why nature means so much to us, all the way to how scientists keep discovering new evidence of the forest's healing effect on mental health.

People at the Ministry of Social Affairs could read Guardian articles. They recently announced they are looking for a new way to address mental health concerns. The goal is to help people faster than before. The project budget is €2 million. Yet a faster — and completely free — remedy for anxiety has long existed: send people to the forest. The forest is something so natural to us, and now suddenly we talk about it as if it were something extraordinary.

Sources in the Guardian articles also throw up their hands — this has been normal for thousands of years, but now we seem to have forgotten it. Forgotten to simply be with our children instead of artificially stressing; forgotten the joy of being together without big preparations; forgotten respect for food; forgotten that humans come from nature and therefore feel best there.

I think about all this and try to understand why normal is being talked about as the new normal. Why normalcy is being normalized again. For those who never strayed from normalcy, it feels a bit schizophrenic. Like trying to sell ice to the Inuit. But maybe we are simply victims of social media echo chambers, and in our hearts we have always known how to live. Now we dare to say it again — and act accordingly.

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