Thread 2, which is only sort of about today's news, but I think important. COVID has hurt our national empathy in ways that I think contributed to the crisis this week. We have a collective obligation to understand, and try to minimize further damage:
1/ This all started from a conversation with a colleague and friend on Monday. (She didn't consent to be ID'd, so forgive my anonymity). Point is this was 2 days before the seditious acts of terrorism that happened yesterday.
2/ She noted that everyone in her district was "going to their corners" and getting ready for a fight. Not because they were bad, but because our months of quarantine have kept us from spending time with people different from ourselves.
3/ From a public health perspective that is good, and necessary and righteous! But something is lost. We quarantine with people who are genetically, ethically, spiritually a lot like us.
4/ Pre-COVID, we went to religious services, and townhalls, and concerts and ballgames with people who spanned the gamut of experience. We had daily reminders of our common humanity with people who were otherwise different.
5/ But post-COVID, the public health bubbles we must keep have become the analog equivalent of digital echo chambers. We don't get on that train full of saints, sinners, losers, winners, whores, gamblers, and lost souls. We're isolated among our own kind.
6/ Meanwhile, the preachers have lost their pulpits. Political leaders have lost their townhalls. Musicians have lost their stages. The people who's job it is to remind us of our common humanity that we so desperately need to be reminded of have lost their toolbox.
7/ This is how it must be until we get this damned virus under control. But until we do, those moments that used to dull our rougher edges have been replaced with bubbles that sharpen the same corners. None of us are immune.
8/ The fix is the vaccine, social distancing and masks. There are no shortcuts. But until then, at least recognize that all of us are - however inadvertently - a little less open, and less tolerant than we were when circumstances gave us more opportunities to cross-pollinate.
9/ No matter how good, saintly and empathetic you are... you have not exercised those muscles as much as you normally do. Be aware. Love a little harder than you might otherwise. Listen a little longer. Be a little more flexible.
We're all on this train. All aboard. /fin
We're all on this train. All aboard. /fin
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