A Toast to COVID-19
We're all experiencing the effects of this COVID-19 pandemic together, though separately.
Does it feel surreal? Like nothing you ever experienced before?
Actually, this feels familiar to me. Feeling useless, confused, with things constantly changing?
I felt like this the whole two years I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali.
But looking back, it was one of the best times of my life and one that profoundly changed who I was and what I realized I could handle.
I don't mean to minimize this human tragedy. As of Saturday, April 25, 2020, there were 2521 cases of COVID-19 in New Mexico and 84 deaths.
"Finding something good in a bad situation could be a good sign of healing"
Bim Adewunmi, The Show of Delights, This American Life
When we look back on the COVID-19 pandemic, will there be anything that was good about this pandemic lockdown?
I believe there could be. Here are three: Unity. A more sustainable and just economy. A wave of creative expression.
United We Stand
You know how in the movies, when aliens come down and start attacking people, somehow all humanity stops fighting each other, and we come together to battle a common enemy?
The COVID-19 pandemic is like that.
I asked John what was one good thing he could think of about the COVID-19 pandemic, and he said, "Fewer school shootings."
I laughed, but he was right. In America, we went the entire month of March without a single school shooting. This hasn't happened since 2002.
When you looked at US news in 2019 and early 2020, it was all about impeaching Trump for his crimes and the Democratic presidential candidates fighting to win the primary.
Now the news is all about the coronavirus.
President Trump has gone completely mad and is now irrelevant. The other Democratic candidates melted away after Super Tuesday and we are now all coming together to ensure Joe Biden, a decent man with a long record of public service, will replace this corrupt, incompetent administration. Faced with a pandemic, humanity is banding together to fight the virus. Can we remember how to work together, after this common enemy has been defeated?
Systemic Change
You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
We are going through a massive shakeup in our healthcare and financial systems. We're seeing the ways in which the American economy does not work for poor people, immigrants, people with chronic illnesses, people in rural areas, those with less formal education, those who are fragile. If we work at it, this kind of stress test can result in better processes in the future.
A while ago I read the book, "The World Without Us", a thought experiment on what would happen if all humanity disappeared. With this massive shut down and stay-at-home orders, we are getting to see what that looks like:
- People are googling, "Are birds chirping louder?" because we can hear nature more, and we have time to listen and focus on what we are hearing
- Without traffic and industry, scientists are able to detect more subtle seismic vibrations
- The ocean is quieter, too
- The air is cleaner in cities that shut down. Check out this stunning before-and-after slider effect in Delhi
This pandemic is a chance to pause and contemplate. What are we doing with the resources we have? How do we organize our days? What could a post-epidemic society look like? How much carbon dioxide and other pollutants can we remove from circulation? How far can we go to alleviate climate change? This crisis opens our eyes to the possibilities.
As Jack McKeown said in a comment in the New York Times,
A sustaining belief for us is that a more equitable and humane society can emerge from this struggle. Universal health care, a guaranteed national income, national public service, a wealth tax, a greener economy and WPA-style infrastructure program---ideas that I would have dismissed a few months ago as panacea---now seem more like pragmatic necessities. It gives me optimism to want to survive to the other side and be part of this emerging new reality.
I Like It, Actually, New York Times, April 24, 2020
A Surge of Creativity
Spring is a time of renewed energy. Can we turn the COVID-19 lockdown into an opportunity to work on creative projects?
This article suggests that writing a coronavirus diary could help you cope and be of use to future historians.
And my buddy Carmen reposted this on Facebook:
After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking time, now I discovered that wasn't the reason.
My partner John and I have been going for walks every day, and one day I noticed a new mural in the neighborhood.
As it turns out, one of my neighbors is Courtney Angermeier, a faculty member at UNM. When the University shut down in March, she started a community art project painting stylized animals on the wall facing Columbia Avenue. It's going really well. People have been donating supplies, paint, and funding to help her put up these murals. She's hoping to get the cemetary across the street, which has a long, uninterrupted wall, to go along with this project when she runs out of house walls. When this shut down ends, we will have a fabulous piece of art to remember it by.
Let's not let this serious crisis go to waste. Let's get to work.