JANUARY 16, 2022 – Another direct lesson of serious disease is how it affects my response to “the news.” Overcrowded ERs overshadow the prospect of Putin invading Ukraine; revised CDC recommendations on masking supersedes the growing, apparent rivalry between Governor DeSantis and You-Know-Who for the 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination; bare grocery shelves because of Covid-related staffing shortages obliterate the standoff at a Dallas synagogue; and my Great Escape . . . the launch of the James Webb telescope leaps ahead of the House Subcommittee investigation of the January 6 insurrection.
Yesterday morning, our own family faced (still, again) what preoccupies millions across the country, not to mention people beyond our borders: the inescapable, undeniable pandemic.
Without passing judgment about vaccine reticence in reaction to disinformation or diving too far into the weeds of specific life/work/school circumstances . . . our local son called to inform us of our six-year-old granddaughter’s positive Covid test, albeit without symptoms, thank God, except for parental headaches, real and figurative. What ensued was an hour-long phone conversation about the logistical problems now besetting our son/girlfriend’s household and the consequent emotional and physical toll on all concerned. If the details are unique to our son’s world, the general conditions confront us all.
The overlap of the pandemic upon my personal immunocompromised condition is fraught with my anxieties. In all other contexts of global news, however, my focus on personal health diminishes my interest in—let alone concern for—critical matters affecting everyone, including egocentric moi.
Reflection, however, reveals harshly that I can’t seek exemption in the skin . . . er, feathers . . . of an ostrich standing on the beach, head below sand level. Nor can I succumb to despair, go “zombie,” and walk into the sea until it washes over my head, my life, my space in . . . space and cosmic memory. And lest I fool myself, no progress occurs in a sailboat on the even keel of ambivalence. It’s my responsibility as a member of society here and now upon this speck of galactic dust to take an interest, be concerned, and engage in matters beyond this week’s S-M-T-W-T-F-S pillbox—an “old person’s” device I used to joke about in a previous life of naiveté. Nearly all news has now become integrated—for me, for us.
I must emulate my dear friend Jack, older than I and struggling more than I, yet ever present and driven more than I to engage, to follow, to synthesize, to respond constructively to “the news.”
I now live with new perspective. The earth—a biosphere with climate, weather, seismological geology—spins despite our words and will, not because of them. That reality is constant within any conceivable relevant scope of time. The response, however, shouldn’t be fatalistic, nihilistic, or ambivalent. None of us should be that ostrich with head below sand level or a zombie walker below sea level . . . or a passive passenger aboard a level boat. We are here, therefore, we must be present, fully engaged in the work of humanity heeling in the winds of our shared pain, hope, folly, and striving.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
