I’m going to share 5 big-picture points regarding the pandemic. I share these points NOT because I think they are especially insightful (unlike most of you, I’m not an epidemiologist!), but because I think my future self (with 20/20 hindsight, of course) will be interested to know my 2020 thinking (thanks Facebook memories!).
POINT #1
Life is fragile. Of course,
we knew this already (I told you these points wouldn’t be especially insightful!).
On the other hand, we have tried REALLY hard to avoid facing the fact that life
is fragile. In the modern world, we’ve been socially distancing ourselves from
death for decades, but 2020 has forced us to take the blinders off. The media’s
obsession with Covid-19 death tolls is maddening mostly for the inconsistency
of its sounding of the alarm. About 60,000 people die every week in the United
States. The pandemic certainly did produce an excess of deaths. This virus was
and is real. But we’ve been infected with a deadly disease all along insofar as
we are mortal. The fact of our fragility should, in my opinion, cause us to
urgently ask the big questions about life, death, and the possibility of life
after death. One of the tragedies of our times is our willingness to live our
lives without asking those questions.
POINT #2
Our immune systems are
amazing! What if I told you that there existed, way back in March, a universally
free survival kit for covid that was about 98% effective? That’s exactly what
we’ve got! For those under 60 years old, the case fatality rate for this viral
infection is less than 1%. The ‘infection’ fatality rate is even lower. How is
this possible without a vaccine? Well, the answer is, of course, that our
bodies already have built-in systems to fight off stuff like this. Perhaps a
majority of people infected with this virus haven’t even realized it! The
pandemic has given us the opportunity to learn more about our innate (I’d say
God-given) ability to fight off disease and what we’ve learned has been astounding.
Sometimes we lose our sense of wonder at the fact that we can be significantly wounded,
and yet, within weeks, the evidence is sometimes gone without treatment. This
sort of self-healing happens internally all the time. We take it for granted.
We shouldn’t.
POINT #3
Numbers can be manipulated
and used to manipulate. There have been plenty of different opinions about
covid-19. At one end of the spectrum we’ve had people saying the whole thing is
a hoax. At the other end of the spectrum we’ve had people predicting incredible
death totals which proved to be more panic-provoking than prophetic. But here’s
the thing: Both ends of the spectrum had numbers to back up their claims. Numbers
were EVERYWHERE and they all looked neat and tidy (and they were all declared to
be ‘the science’). One thing we should be learning through this pandemic is the
importance of understanding CONTEXT for the numbers we’re being shown. Too
often we’ve allowed narratives to be driven by a small number of people
choosing which numbers to show us and when. They place the arrow where they
want it, draw a bullseye around it, and then draw our attention. I strongly
recommend that everyone figure out a few key data points to pay attention to,
and then pay attention to it no matter what the politicians and/or media choose
to focus on during a given news cycle.
POINT #4
A virus is going to do what a
virus is going to do. With this point, I don’t mean to come across as if I’m
saying that there’s absolutely nothing we can do in response to a global
pandemic. But I also think we have severely over-estimated our ability to stop
a virus (at least a virus like this one). I’ve spent hours and hours looking at
charts and statistics. Country by country. State by state. Each entity having
its own set of mitigation procedures. Some locked down. Some stayed open. Some
mandated masks. Some didn’t. You know what? I simply haven’t seen a ton of
difference. The viral waves rise and fall despite our defenses. The bottom line
is, we’re in the ocean of this virus and we’re all going to get wet. Some of us
will get knocked off our feet for a while. Some of us will drown. It’s the
nature of this beast. It might feel better to blame someone or something, but almost
certainly that someone or that something couldn’t have stopped the virus from
doing what this virus was going to do.
POINT #5
Flowing directly from my
previous point, I’ll share one more. We’re addicted to something that we can’t
possibly possess. And that is CONTROL. Since we can’t actually possess it, we’re
just addicted to the feeling of being in control. This is true of governors who
insist that their policies slowed the spread of the virus (and then blame
increasing spread on the failure of the people to abide by their policies).
This is also true of the conspiracy theorists who insist that you have to
follow their connecting-of-the-dots to truly understand (and take back control)
of what’s going on. Here’s the thing: We are NOT in control. This world is full
of surprises and many of them are bigger than our ability to manage them. Lacking
control, we need to learn to adapt. We must be flexible. We must grieve our
losses. We also must celebrate our victories. Our lives should not consist of an
endless pursuit of control, but an endless pursuit of love amidst the chaos. In
other words, we are better off praying the serenity prayer than grasping at the
wind.
