"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability
to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,
and still retain the ability to function."
to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,
and still retain the ability to function."
[F Scott Fitzgerald]
Ability to function is the key takeaway, it seems.
Liza-Ann suggested to me that maybe I should write, to perhaps record for posterity what it was like living during the pandemic, to be able to look back on later. I explained that I've thought of writing many times but... there's a problem. While there are many things that come to mind, my process... my usual process involves having a conclusion, a point to make, before I sit down to begin. I come up with an intro, a metaphor of sorts, and then it's just a matter of connecting the dots. For the more difficult topics, I'm often wading through the muck myself as I go, sorting things in my own head.
But this. Living today? I can't see the end. I can't see where it all goes. Instead my head is just a jumble of different scattered thoughts, like balls I'm trying desperately to keep in the air, and I've never been a very good juggler.
So today, I ramble.
Schrödinger's Pat
I exist right now in a rather torturous mental state, the very one I expect we all do, the pinnacle of self-doubt. You're half way across town in the car and you find yourself wondering did I turn the oven off? You cannot remember clearly enough to decide. One half of your brain tells you not to panic: surely you did, and even if you didn't it's not like the house would burn down. The other half tells you you're not taking it seriously enough: the house could be on fire, but if it's not, and you rush back right now, you could prevent that fire.
No one gaslights us better than we gaslight ourselves.
Are you taking the pandemic seriously enough? Are you taking it too seriously? Should you be staying in more? Going out more? Having people in more? Staying to yourself more? Are restaurants ok? What about just drive-throughs? Pick up? Delivery? Contactless delivery, surely that's ok.
You exist now on a line that goes in two directions, and you know you're somewhere on it, but you know neither where you are nor where you should be because you're not even sure how far it extends either way. You don't know exactly where friends and family are around you, because even those questions are delicate conversations. If I'm being more cautious than them, will they think me paranoid? If I'm being less cautious, will they think me reckless?
And that constant self-doubt permeates every aspect of one's day. Every work decision. Every parenting decision. Every spending decision. Every decision.
Every.
Decision.
Old Ghosts
I find myself haunted by peculiar old ghosts I don't talk about.
The problem with the scientific approach, the problem with the skeptical mind is that while it's easy to recognize the Texas Sharpshooter or wild coincidence and dismiss it as such, it is not without consideration, at least. The skeptical mind does not keep things out; it takes them in and examines them first, and only then does it accept or reject. In days of such widespread doubt, such 'unprecedented times', it's harder to set aside even the dumbest what ifs with only a cursory glance.
I do not believe in mystical prophecy (except as a fun story-telling tool). But when I was young, as a teen and even before that, I very much did. After all, Catholicism promotes a belief in the paranormal at the same time it condemns it. So I read The Book of Revelations. I read Nostradamus. I very much expected the end-times to come with the rollover of the millennium - give or take the 4-6 years of inaccuracy in the Christian calendar start, of course, I was still an intellectual. When they talked about nuclear proliferation in high school I thought it would surely take that form. I had a recurring dream through my teens of being an adult and running away with a number of friends to a spot near Makinsons where we would set up our own tiny survivalist community of modular military tents in response to... whatever was inevitably coming. If it was soon after seeing Red Dawn then it was probably the Russians. If it was after Dawn of the Dead, maybe it was zombies. Whatever it would be, it was coming sooner or later, so I embraced survival training like it would some day be very important. Years passed and when talk about Y2K began, I pondered if that might be the beginning of the end.
As I got older and wiser I learned how every civilization, ever generation, has its own doomsday stories. I realized it went from 1999 (Nostradamus) to 2000 (Y2K) to 2012 (Mayan Calendar) and any day now there'll be 2025 or 2050 - I can't remember which - based on the Book of Psalms. I'm missing a rapture or two in there, I'm sure, as I stopped paying attention. And each prediction gets that 'give or take 5 or 6 years because we don't really know when Jesus was born' window so as to spread out the panic a while and bridge us to the next doomsayer conspiracy. Nowadays we get doomsday clocks for both nuclear war and climate collapse, and there's good science behind the latter, even if modern politics doesn't bring about the former.
So then the pandemic arrives.
And in these strange times, that recurring dream from my teenage years keeps popping back into my head, like it had been some sort of prescient vision. We own very similar land, just 30 mins farther, in Markland. Coincidence...?
Fuck yes, of course it's coincidence.
It's pure coincidence. But the panicky mind grasps to make sense of things, to find something to cling to. So it's become a tiny, stupid, sharp little splinter of the mind that just sticks there, and irritates periodically.
The Microscope
Covid-19 and climate destabilization may be existential threats, but they're also microscopes. They have really focused attention on certain truths about human existence - about limitless human greed - that we've always suspected or perhaps known, but are now so very undeniable. The need to cope with this virus and the growing changes to the planet's weather systems are symptoms, not causes, of mankind's modern struggle. A few years back I saw a David Suzuki video about exponential growth in relation to the increasing human population and how it is leading mankind to the brink of disaster. Our unfettered and insatiable need to grow (employees, salaries, profit margins, etc.) will be the death of us all. That was nearly a decade ago, and no one has paid much attention. But now, amidst a global pandemic, it's become really clear that we have the resources; it's a question of equitable distribution. Bezos will never spend the mind-boggling amount of wealth he has accumulated. Trickle-down economics are a lie. The world produces 150% of the food required to feed us all but inefficiencies in distribution, a lack of diversification of agriculture, and our inability to properly share cold storage technology leads to a great many people starving to death every year and those numbers are expected to get worse, not better. Locally, Dominion is on strike, but their CEO will probably still get paid her $6.7 million salary this year.
A lot of people think Trump's a problem. His presidency is the symptom of a bigger problem: a divided America with a broken political system that, rather than find reasonable bipartisan compromises, plays a tug of war every few years and lets the pendulum of political will shift radically back and forth. It's bought and paid for by the rich, manipulated by the media, interfered with by foreign interests, and ultimately somehow grants both too much and not enough power to the person it appoints. The Canadian system is not much better. The party that ran on election reform got in office, shrugged and said 'too hard, m'kay' and left that on the cutting room floor.
And let's not even get started on justice systems.
But we know now. Undeniably. Social media brought it into the light and the current challenges we face have brought it into focus. Too few control too much. Too few who can't be trusted to serve the greater good, but only themselves. That has to change.
Silver Linings
Whatever the new world is, this isn't it. Not yet. It's one of the few things of which I feel quite certain. This is just a transient period. But there have been changes, and while change is always frightening, there have been positive changes among them.
I think people are finally becoming aware of their unawareness, you might say. You don't know everyone else's circumstance, so cut them some slack. Show a little empathy. Embrace compassion. The Dalai Lama has been pushing a message of compassion as the path to mankind's saving itself from itself forever, but only now does it feel like maybe it's starting to slowly take hold. Cut off from one another, spending so much time alone in our homes, struggling emotionally, has it finally sunk in for us that others also quietly suffer, and maybe it'd be better to greet them a little more gently, with a little more understanding. When someone is forgetful or late, maybe instead of being quick to be critical, we can pause and ask ourselves what might have made them late or forgetful.
I've always tried to take a 'net neutral or positive' attitude about giving people breaks when driving. I used to actually count it in my head when driving to and from work. Someone gave me a break, minus one. I gave someone a break, plus one. I'd try to always arrive home at 0 or better.
Nowadays, I try to be even more generous. I see someone waiting to turn and I think I'm not in that big a hurry. They might be. And if they honk or wave or nod, all the better. We're being civil with one another. And if there's one thing civilization needs more of right now, it's civility.
Pressing On
I learned recently of a number of old acquaintances dying. These aren't exactly people I grieve, just... I don't know. It's a reminder of mortality, I suppose. I also know people closer to me who are grieving, dealing with losses, at different stages of that difficult journey... but now is not a time when we can arrange to 'bump into them' and ask them if they're ok, see if there's anything we can do.
And what we're all dealing with right now, living through a global pandemic, is a form of grieving itself.
Perhaps that's the note I end on: my best and only real advice for grieving.
Time does not "heal all wounds". You don't "get over it" or "move on". Those are worthless platitudes. Rather, you learn to carry it with you. You learn to wear it proudly like a battle scar. You learn to go on living. You learn to appreciate the fond memories, and in time those come to mind more often than the sad ones or the sense of something missing. You continue to find joy. You focus on the good and find hope for the future. You get up day after day, whether it is with a stride in your step or a sense of dread for the day, but you learn to get out of bed regardless, and press on, no matter how difficult or why. And keep on pressing on. Because that's how life goes. In one direction. Forward.
Cut someone a break in traffic today. Maybe they'll smile or wave or honk. Maybe you'll both feel just a tiny bit better.
