The day outside is beautiful and...the mayor of NYC has been hinting at the lockdown to remain in place for longer than May 15. It made me wonder, if we are within "The Great Reset", where is the reset point actually exist?
Humanity, if history has anything to say, is resilient. If you would have asked me, or probably anyone else for that matter, if New York and New Jersey would shut down because of a pandemic, my first words, after laughing for some time, would have been, "Well, yeah, sure,...after the military are brought in!" It seemed like an insane thought that everyone would cooperate for a long period of time. That being said, we have lived through the 9-11 attacks with amazing grace and patience. But that seemed like a personal, one time thing. Once everything calmed down and everyone was given the clearance to go outside, life, albeit gently, returned to its usual pace.
This virus, however, has shown something else. Granted, the fear of death is a somewhat universal recalibration for everyone's behavior pretty much everywhere, but there is this patience I have never seen before. Everyone is just sticking together on this one. There are no riots, no mass of people roaming the streets. We have, as a people, such together for the betterment of us all. Yes, the fact that everything got shut down helps the ever present fulfillment of desires be abated easier. Still, part of me is impressed.
But what will be the bottom line for the "reset"? Will we be a better people? Will everyone remember this or will it all fade once a cure has been found and there is no longer a worry? Humanity has a tendency to forget the past and march forward. That can't be totally dismissed as bad since that is one way progress is made. But nothing on this scale has happened in history, a global pandemic. There is no "Them" or "Us", no "There" or "Here".
The best that can happen is that there will be a majority of people who remember and stay grateful that they made it through, that they can go food shopping, go to church, go to see a band, go to the gym, get a cough and fever and not think they are going to die. It doesn't have to be this insane bliss, just a low humming of thankfulness running through each day.
But, if history says anything, we will forget like we always do, and I can't say that is a bad thing in real terms. We HAVE TO forget and move on. That is to say, we have to be in the moment as much as possible and believe the danger has passed. In Joan Didion's book, "The Year of Magical Thinking", she explores the mourning of the sudden loss of her husband. She tried to find meaning in life after the love of her life was gone. When you see her now, you can see the loss of her husband, as well as her daughter who died almost two years later, etched on her face. Even after this extreme amount of tragedy, she continues to write.
In "The Plague", the main character and (spoiler alert) narrator, Dr. Rieux, walks through the rejoicing crowd upon the opening of the gates once the plague has retreated and deaths have fallen in increasing numbers. As he himself has (more spoilers) lost his close friend to plague and his wife to an undisclosed illness far away in a sanitarium, he knows most people will forget and that life will go on for everyone. But he himself knows that the plague never really vanishes, that plagues are as common as wars and are always possible. His relief in there no longer being plague and freedom coming back are tempered. Yet, if one takes the extra step in the narrative, he continued on after life went on on and wrote down the chronicle of the events AFTER the book ends. He didn't stop living, but neither did he forget.
There are, as of this morning, more than 40,000 deaths in the US alone. There are many many people who are in mourning. To those who make it out of this invisible minefield alive, may we, at the very least, never forget to remember their sorrow.
PS: I have been noticing that this blog has been getting some traffic. Please feel free to comment, and/or pass it along. Thank you.
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