The Brave New World

We will need to begin a phased reopening of the country prior to a coronavirus vaccine being available, if there ever is one, and no matter what phasing and coordination, there will be an uptick in COVID-19 cases. This so-called 'M curve' can only be minimized, not avoided, because we have to live our lives, and there is no such thing as a risk-free life or, in some cases, a risk-free livelihood. This will probably create an awareness in us that we should already have, i.e. clean hands, clean phone, sensitivity to symptoms, self-isolation, proactive medical care, etc. It will also create a minimalist mindset with benefits to society, e.g. minimizing activities that contribute to global warming, and detriments, e.g. minimizing activities that contribute to heart warming :-) I believe that one of the most valuable upsides will be the fact that when someone shakes your hand or gives you a hug or attends your party or eats at your restaurant, they will be conveying to you that you are worth the risk. That is a good thing.

The Choice

In The Republic (380 BC), Plato wonders if the average citizen of a society is the right person to be making the decisions about who should be making the decisions for a society. And this has been a question we (at the very least, Western Civilizations) have grappled with since then. In Walter Lippmann's 1922 book Public Opinion, he states that, in the face the ever-increasing complexity of the world, especially relative to the democracy that our Founding Fathers created, average citizens navigate the world through stereotypes (about everything, including the government, environment, medicine, etc), which are fed, in large part, by the media. (This is back in 1922!). If you look at the ever increasing polarization of stereotypes fed by the ever-widening gap between media outlets, you can see how perfectly rational people can be led to vastly different conclusions about the world. I think that "our" job is to close that gap. That means that I actually read posts (and shared articles) of people that I do not agree with, and I actually expect them to consider my counterpoints. I am not sure if this expectation is realistic, but what choice do I have?

POTUS-45 vs COVID-19

When things are going well, very few people ask "who is the single person responsible for our success?". But when things are not going well, the common question is often "who is the single person responsible for our failure?" We have a basic psychological need to find someone to blame when things go wrong, but, in reality, complex systems produce both success and failure. POTUS exacerbates this skewed perception, because we often over-attribute good and bad outcomes to the President, probably because the President is such a visible character and is quite over-covered by the media, whether Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump. Of course, you can give credit for a job well done, and criticism for a job not well done, because POTUS does play a role, but if you give too much credit or criticism, then you neglect the shared accountability of congress, state and local government, non-governmental agencies, industry leaders and, most importantly, ourselves. I - personally - never wrote my congressman to ask them to sponsor a bill to create excess capacity in emergency medical facilities or stockpile urgent medical supplies, nor did I stockpile supplies in my home or plan for long-term sheltering in place. We can certainly criticize POTUS for his dismissive tone as this crisis ramped up, and other moves that delayed testing or delayed the kind of over-response required to stem the tide of a pandemic. However, overall, these can only be called poor reactions, whereas the real problem here is not having a preemptive system in place. This would go far beyond the NSC Pandemic Unit that Trump disbanded in 2018, though it would be nice to have that top-level office at this juncture. Regardless, I hope that 'preparedness' becomes a more tangible topic after the dust settles on COVID-19.

Deli Contingencies

In life, I like to give myself three chances. This is why, when I take a ticket for the line at the Deli, I take 3 tickets, just in case I miss my number, or someone double clicks to the next person, etc, etc. Today was the first time in - say - 20 years where this ridiculous strategy paid off. I am not sure how, but the fellas behind the counter skipped over my first two numbers. I don't even think they called them out. I sprang into action upon hearing my third number, mainly because I did not want to spend the next 20 years taking 4 tickets ;-)

TV Sloppiness

Like most people, I really appreciate good movies and TV series, moreso the latter. For example, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. Season 1 was superb. Season 2 is also good, but it suffers from a bad case of implausible coincidences and outright omissions. One minute Jack is about to be executed by an assassin, the next, the woman that was shot in the foot by said assassin and left incapacitated 100+ KM away shoots him in the back of the head. One scene, Jack gets stabbed in the arm, the next he is wearing short sleeves and wringing his hands without so much as a band-aid. The story line is still excellent, but these little things add up to make the show feel unbuttoned. It is like going to see Tosca at the Met and noticing that Mario Cavaradossi is wearing high top Converse sneakers. If the objective is to create an alternate reality for the viewer to immerse themselves within, then the craft must be at a higher level.

The Daily Pattern

Every morning when I wake up, my first thought is ending the day, which consists of the sequence of steps that match the pattern I want for myself on a daily basis. I start each step with an eye towards the next one, but no further. It is a very simple plan: coffee > gym > ready > eat > work > study > home > family > bed :-) Breakfast is my one and only meal on most days, so I don't have to deal with the logistics of lunch or dinner, nor do I have to effect any will power for said meals, nor do I have to kill myself in the gym to manage my weight. This particular plan is not for everyone, but the strategy of defining the lifecycle of a day and targeting it as a pattern to live by can, I think, work for everyone, whatever the pattern. Further, taking the guess work out of every day living leaves more room to be creative, because it conserves energy that might otherwise be spent on deciding between a salad or an entire bag of dark chocolate Hershey's kisses for lunch (wink).

The Visitor

This morning Val came downstairs and asked me to peer out into the soccer field behind our house to see if I could recognize something about 50 yards beyond our fence. It looked like a grey, medium sized animal, like a badger. It had a bit of a round, lopsided look, so I revised my guess to an armadillo, who, having been abducted from his native Southwestern home, and having regained conscious in the middle of a field in New Jersey, endeavored to curl up in a ball and wait it out. However, the stillness of this mysterious figure struck me as being more plant than animal. I settled on a fungus instead, and wondered out loud if it might be a large mushroom - perhaps, the largest one on record in New Jersey - that sprang up amidst all of this rain. Neither my long distance glasses nor the zoom function on either of our phones was enough to resolve this mystery, so we put on our sneakers and cautiously trekked out to it, with Maggie barking from the patio in protest. It did not move as we drew closer. We slowed our pace to give it a chance to react while there was still some distance between us. When we were very close to being on top of it, we paused. The grey sky grew still. The birds grew quiet. Our senses sharpened, like our ancestors on the African plains.  It was an old, discolored and partially deflated basketball :-)