Corona Wisdom: glimpses of a pandemic prompting a call for deep conversation
3/27/2020: who knew our apex predator would be so small?
4/1/2020: are we falling apart or falling together?
4/8/2020: crude oil selling for $15 below breakeven should oil industry be rescued?
4/18/2020: not: when will it end? but: how will we continue?
5/5/2020: will we go back to our fast-paced cult of busyness?
In late December, 2019, a high schooler in Seattle, noticed something curious: a report of an unknown virus in China. He put aside his holiday plans and built a website to collect worldwide data, which turned out to be one of the most popular coronavirus trackers available. He also turned down purchase offers and ad revenue possibilities in the millions of dollars, a choice not made by some politicians and many profiteers.
One question that haunts me: why did Avi Schiffmann, a 17-year-old kid, understand the significance of what he saw when so many world leaders didn’t?
It took me over two months longer than it took Avi to realize this new virus was going to be an important experience in our world. Self-isolating after a trip to Florida to see a friend in late February gave me time to reflect and begin to capture my impressions in art and words. What I realized almost immediately was that this crisis was bringing out the worst and the best in people.
A few glimpses:
Dolly Parton reading children’s stories online.
Chinese citizens sharing breaking news about the virus, using Klingon in WeChat forums, to avoid censors.
Spring break kids on Florida beaches behaving as if they’re immortal.
Emergency virus aid bill signed with shared pens and handshakes.
Empty store shelves as cases of toilet paper are loaded onto a pickup truck.
The first Oregon COVID-19 patient leaving after 70 days in the hospital to the music of a mariachi band.
A coyote on the Golden Gate bridge.
Body bags being loaded into an 18-wheeler on the streets of New York.
Handwritten prayers on cartons of medical supplies sent to New York from California.
A farmer in Kansas sending one leftover n95 mask to the governor of New York.
An old woman in a nursing home touching her grandchild through a glass window.
The May 24th front page of the New York Times filled with 1,000 two-line obituaries, with the line “They were not simply names on a list, they were us.”
While the generations before us dealt with world wars, genocides, and a pandemic that took at least 50 million lives, COVID-19 is the first worldwide challenge this generation has truly struggled with. Future historians will sort out the details, but I don’t think our grade will be stellar.
Thomas L. Friedman stated, “Only generosity will save us.” If that’s the criteria on which we will be judged, it will be a challenge to weigh the generosity and courage against the greed and ignorance.
Over the past 80 days of quarantine and confusion, as well as moments of despair and soaring hope and inspiration, and tears of joy and heart break, I realized I had more questions than answers, more glimpses than a crafted appraisal of what has happened, and is happening, as we dealt with this health and financial crisis.
For me, the final, and ongoing question, is: Who will we become? And, of course, how?
This is where conversation comes into play. The past few decades of life in the United States ruptured our ability to have open, honest, collaborative conversations with each other. To deal with this question of who we want to become, as well as all the others we face, we will need to come together in deep conversation to discuss our various perspectives, values, fears, beliefs, and priorities.
THE LESSON: Times of stress and crisis bring out the worst and the best in us.
A few glimpses of the worst that made me despair:
- Bazookas in a sandwich shop.
- Spitting on people just doing their jobs.
- Threatening the lives of those who trigger your fears.
- Armed protests for the freedom not to wear a mask.
A few glimpses of the best that have lifted my heart:
- A man playing his grand piano from a gondola on the canals of Venice.
- Anonymous donors paying off student loans.
- Amateur pilots flying medical supplies to rural hospitals.
- Health care workers risking their lives to treat patients.
And THE QUESTIONS:
Do all lives matter?
Do all deaths matter?
Does our planet matter?
It it easy to respond: Of course!
However …
Actions speak louder than words and I’m not sure our actions are consistent with our words. These questions are bone deep and complicated. There are no easy answers.
If the lives of our elderly truly mattered, would we put so many of them in substandard warehouses? Only the truly well-to-do can afford the price of top notch care facilities. Plus, the salaries of care workers in all facilities are abysmal, resulting in astronomical employee turnover and a revolving door of under-trained people caring for our elders.
If the lives of everyone mattered, would we have streets in every city in America where the homeless wander aimlessly, often sick mentally or physically, lacking adequate food and shelter and any sense of hope?
If the lives of everyone mattered, would Native Americans be facing a collapse of tribal income, staggering unemployment, and inadequate basic services such as clean, running water?
If the lives of everyone mattered, would children go to bed hungry in one of the richest countries in the world, and almost a third of our people lack affordable access to health care?
If all deaths mattered, what would we have done differently during this pandemic?
The United States is one of the richest, best educated, and most sophisticated countries in the world. We have resources and ingenuity. Are we simply lacking the will?
And, last but definitely not least, does our planet matter? We’ve seen amazing changes in the past three months … cleaner air, clearer water, animals returning to places they had abandoned.
We’ve seen changes in how we work, how we do business, how we relate to our families, our neighbors, our communities. We’ve done what we previously thought impossible, because something we can’t even see said: STOP!
Corona has shown us what we could do.
Will we now begin to treat the planet as our only home or go back to our unsustainable ways?
We need to have serious conversations about these enormously complicated questions. There is a huge bucket of blame for the loss in life and economic security from this pandemic, however, at this point, placing blame will not serve us well. There is enough to be shared by all of us since we’ve all played a role in creating our governments and the current state of our planet.
The bottom line, for me at least, is the understanding that we need to decide who we want to be as a people and then create the systems, the institutions, the governments that will take us there.
I believe all of us, or at least most of us, want to be a part of creating a sound and better future for the future.
We need to start now! How can we foster these conversations?
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“Everything that has a beginning has an ending.
Make your peace with that and all will be well. “
— Buddha
