covid-19 |

Check out my essay. I hope you find it comforting in these strange times.

It is easy to panic. It is easy to feel fear. It is easy to participate in tribalism and outgroup exclusion, making everyone else the “other.” It is easy to judge and shun other people in times of great distress. It is easy to ignore the needs of another person. It is easy to not care about other people. It is easy to put your own needs first, regardless of what is going on around you.

A healthy fear is necessary. Having a tribe is very important for community and support from others. Obviously we should put our needs first, so far as it does not go into selfishness or hysteria, or rampant individualism.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the big questions, so to speak: what is the meaning of life, what is existence itself, how should we live and what should we do, what kinds of thoughts should we have, how can we construct our worldviews, what is knowledge and what is wisdom; I think about these questions all the time, and I often don’t have an easy answer, if I have an answer at all. But I think gathering knowledge and wisdom are definitely a great place to start, knowledge from the various branches fields that exist out there and knowledge that we’ve gained through life and throughout the ages, and wisdom from a variety of sources, some ancient, some modern, some from our own experience and from the experiences of others.

It is a scary time, with Covid-19. People are getting sick and dying. The hospitals are overwhelmed. People are hoarding up on supplies, because they are afraid of what is going to come. There are potential economic disruptions, as well as disruptions in how society functions. People are fearful, and they don’t necessarily know how to act, so our primal instincts and our shadow are activated, and we are far from the land of reason and rationality. Our worst tendencies are coming out in the ring.

But there are many ways that we can look at social catastrophes, and I have been thinking about those kinds of things. For one thing, I think looking after ourselves is important, but so is looking after other people. There is nothing wrong with taking precautions, but we can’t forget that other people are out there, and that they need assistance and support. Maybe this global pandemic is what it will take for people to come together and look after one another. We have seen behavior on the opposite end of the spectrum, but my hope is that more and more people can start to see the bigger picture, to see what is really around them.

In my estimation, nothing is certain. In my estimation, all of the things that I have, such as health, money, friends and community, mobility, and even my art, may not always be here. I may not always have these things. I was thinking about how, if there is going to be economic disruption, many of the things that I take for granted, many social goods, might evaporate. I don’t think that will happen, but we never know.

But there are other ways to look at these things, besides fear at what we may not have. On the one hand, I know that it is easy for me to cave into social phenomena, and become panicked, selfish, and apathetic. So it takes a certain mentality to avoid this, and I wonder if this is wisdom of some sort. I believe that wisdom can come from a variety of sources, ranging from philosophy to religion, from science to podcasts to books of poetry, and I think we should be open to things while also critiquing them and seeing how they are relevant to our lives. So I do my best to mediate my darker tendencies, I do my best to care for other people.

We have had social catastrophes before. We have had sicknesses. We have had economic disruptions. We have had hard lives, and war, and pain. There are many things that are out of our control, and it is hard to realize this in difficult moments in time. But the way that I see it, a lot of these things are historical; while they are happening, they are also being written. This implies that this is a moment in time that will not last forever. When plagues hit us, in past iterations, they only occupy one moment in time, and in an objective sense, they don’t last forever, because they are a part of history itself. We can take the bigger picture view, the macro view, and acknowledge our place in the universe, acknowledge and that the world is much bigger than we can ever know, and so is our universe.

In trying to discern mere knowledge from wisdom, I have wondered how best to talk about these things. I am a curious person by nature, and I like talking about ideas, and I wanted to write this essay to help bring some peace to the world, even if it is a small niche or corner in the world. I feel that in my mind, I don’t want to talk about Covid all the time, but I also want to address my personal concerns and the concerns of others, and share my thoughts and ideas and writings with other people who are receptive. I understand that people can panic just by seeing information (and misinformation) everywhere, and this is not good, but I also think being politically correct about difficult matters does not protect us, but rather, holds back valuable discussion.

But in my mind, Covid is not everything. There is so much more. We are always dealing with something in the world, and mortal threats are everywhere. While I believe that this pandemic could definitely shake a lot of things up for the world, hopefully it makes us wiser and more willing to work together to be able to solve local and global problems. I know that not all of my ideas are wise or even informed by knowledge. I know that I do not have the answer for most things, much less what to do with the pandemic. But I have spent a lot of time thinking about the big questions because I want to know, I want to learn, and I want to create possible solutions and new ways of looking at things.

So, I opt to take a macro perspective on things. Do I care to see the bigger picture, and can I even see this bigger picture? I believe that I can. It starts with thinking heavily about what we take for granted, and what we should do to be better people. These may not be easy things to do, but we need to do the heavy lifting.

To me, the bigger picture, as Russell Brand spoke of in a recent video, as well as Buddha and Plato in past iterations, includes realizing that reality is made up of deeper layers, and what we see is not reality in its entirety. This to me, is a very useful idea, and a little bit of wisdom, as it implies that what we are seeing is not what everything is. This is important for grounding ourselves, and realizing that we can take a step back and detach, and look at these things from a rich perspective of wisdom and knowledge, and dare to seek the truth of the matter, versus only going off the superficial and what appears to us to be so apparent, but probably is not the whole reality.

I have been afraid lately, afraid for my community, afraid for the world, afraid for my health and mental health, but I am hopeful. I believe that people can come together, and that we can care for one another. I believe that the necessary knowledge that we need to overcome these difficulties, will eventually be understood and apprehended, while we will become just a little bit wiser through the experience. Life is far from perfect, and anything can be taken from us, but that doesn’t mean that we stop persisting, that doesn’t mean that we give up. I may not always know what to do in difficult situations, but I know that I am going to do my best with all of these things that I have mentioned, and I will search for wisdom, and I will continue to explore, and I will continue to challenge myself to see the world in a fuller, richer way.

For me, it is about being grounded; when the world seems to be falling apart, I do my best to ground myself and remember that I am alive and I am breathing, and I will be okay. I have overcome many things in my life, and I know that I can continue to be strong and do difficult things. I may not always like this, but I know that I will continually do my best to push forward, to question things, to inform myself, and to really see what is going on, the deeper reality. As I always like to say, life is just getting started. There is so much life left to live, and I am going through these things in my mind, I am thinking about these things, and I think other people should as well.

Rise from the Ashes …

covid-19

Journal of the Plague Year (YouTube Video)

Journal of the Plague Year

Knowledge and Wisdom (An Essay)