[the people they left behind on Golgafrincham] "stayed firmly at home and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone." "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” By Douglas Adams
The bad news is that we’ve been sitting in a disaster for at least two months now and while we know the rough plot points (massively increase in testing, develop treatment, produce a vaccine) we still don’t know how it’s going to end. Beyond not sitting at home grinding everyone into poverty on the one hand and, on the other, not killing everyone through contagion or pollution, we don’t even know what the middle game is.
When I wrote a couple of weeks ago about society rebooting, I had hopes that, as David Grossman noted, there would be those, perhaps many, who will use this opportunity to take stock of their lives and “insist on distinguishing the wheat from the chaff” of life. Now, after Easter and Passover with 40,000 deaths on the COVID slate we are passing into Ramadan and there’s no real sense of responsibility or accountability at a federal level. Those who are still slow to act and ineffective, have blamed others, have sown distraction, have covered political bases not government positions.
So, between the struggle to see the good things and my fortune that I’m working and my kids’ online school is occupying us, it’s taking me time to work through the Yuval Harari, Mary Meeker, Sigmund Freud, Albert Camus that you sent me. I hope to constructively address some of their points in my next post.
But, though the slow-motion disaster is killing thousands of Americans and hundreds of Britons every day, bad faith actors in America are largely settling back into bad habits, behaving poorly, threatening treason, objecting to saving their compatriots (and their own) lives and blaming the Chinese, the Jews, the WHO or the cell phone companies — whatever scapegoat their tin foil MAGA hats suggest. As the contemporary philosopher Taylor Alison Swift notes, “Haters gonna hate (hate hate hate).”
Fortunately there are seven areas of temporary gain for those of us who are healthy, safe, with a roof over our head and financially able to put food on the table.
1. Gratitude Got Real
Over the past few years rhetoric of anti-privilege has stressed the systemic “luck” of my middle-classness, while austerity in the United Kingdom and middle class precariousness in America have shown how brittle that privilege actually is. But it has taken this pandemic to imbue with meaning the simple words “how are you?” We actually need to know how people are feeling. Being safe, well, healthy are no longer givens. We are all a step closer to hospital, homelessness and despair. As long as we remain secure and healthy we are grateful, and we pass that on in conversations that are more meaningful, more treasured than before. The Japanese have a concept of “mono no awa-re” — the special poignance of transient beauty. The usual example is that cherry blossom is especially appreciated because it leaves so soon after arriving. I find myself appreciating phone calls to friends and family that much more because who knows whether it will ever happen again.
2. Family Got Familiar
Yes, some people are stuck with those who have been abusing them for years, some people are stuck alone and yes, the close quarters are sometimes an excuse for, ahem, friction, shall we say. But being stuck at home in close quarters alongside people you have chosen to live with can lead to some fast-track or deep-seated intimacy. Yes, familiarity might breed contempt and yes, COVIDiots might be running from that degree of self-awareness but lockdown also gives us the opportunity to get to know our roommates, to reacquaint with spouse or parents, to find out who your children are really becoming. I guess, too, there will be a novel coronavirus baby boom early next year. The degree of self-realisation will be shown by how long that baby boom lasts!
3. Homes Got Improved
When you have to spend all your time looking at the same four walls, you really get a sense of how the feng shui could be improved. We’ve spent the last 7 weeks of quarantine waging an unceasing war with Japanese knotweed in our outdoor space, in a determined struggle to turn a construction zone into a garden. Drills are turning that haven’t been turned in years, pictures hung or discarded that have been leaned up against the wall for eternity and you have to believe that there aren’t going to be any boxes on the floor of the kitchen. By the time we actually get to visit our friends’ houses again they aren’t going to be recognisable.
4. Food Got Toothsome
The other productive thing that it seems like we are all doing is scavenge-cooking. Every forage to the outside world is a safari, grocery orders are a lottery and raiding the deep larder for ingredients is the new normal. Lots of home cooking has three outcomes. First, you cook with less fat, less salt and less sugar which means less dental work (as does the ample opportunity for midday toothbrushing and daily flossing). Second we all learn to cook better, off recipe. Third we all overeat as we get better at cooking and resent any waste. Finally, as waistbands bear witness, we pack on the “Covid 19.”
5. Education Got Appreciated
No one will ever again underestimate the importance of our schools. A globeful of suddenly home-schooling parents have a new appreciation for teachers who take care of our nations’ students. I was a professional teacher for a decade and I’m happy that everyone is experiencing the difficulty of inculcating learning and just plain living with kids! We might even be able to take a holistic view of how education could work — 12 months of school anyone?
6. Murder Got R Zeroed
1. With people off the street keeping down the coronavirus R the murder rate is way down — at least until the poverty and desperation kicks in. And it’s not just the chance of catching a stray bullet that’s down. The corollary of keeping one infectious disease contained is that they are all contained. You may have aches and pains from lack of exercise but you shouldn’t be catching so much as a cold.
7. Art Got Incubated
The last piece of good news is that we are due a great piece of art. A billion people or more, with a shared experience, an intensity of engagement and time to work on it — all the ingredients are here. Granted it won’t last well, but I give it a month before we have our first genuine corona masterpiece.
Hope that tides you over. In the next newsletter, nationalism, mass delusion and the end of the world as we know it!