It all changed within a week. It changed so fast.
We stay home now. Or, we’re supposed to. Many people don’t, or can’t stay home.
The streets are silent at inappropriate times. Indoors, with our screens — our remote digital eyes — we watch a hysterical world.
The poor have been the first to get it. Many service industry jobs collapsed this week under enforced quarantines.
Do we owe an apology to the tinfoil-hat-wearing doomsday preppers?
Online, some people make memes. Humor is usually a good way to cope with uncertainty and fear. As the weeks go on the memes become less funny. But at least we’re laughing. Right?
A few questions:
Are the optimists right? Will this blow over in a few weeks? Or are they canaries whistling in a coal mine?
Do we owe an apology to the tinfoil-hat-wearing doomsday preppers?
Within a week the remote “work from home” scenario began to feel trivial. The spreadsheets and emails that I convinced myself constituted something suddenly felt like nothing, really. Not compared to the basics of food, water, shelter, and safety.
The base animal instincts of self-preservation are starting to kick in for most of the population. In retail stores and grocery stores (both open for now) there’s a palpable anxiety. Folks have eyes like spooked horses.
With fear, and counterbalanced against it, I see the the highest human ideals emerge. I see examples of nobility, deep calm, prayers for peace, and altruism. These are the spiritual tools most effective at quelling hysteria.
Now I watch.
Now we all wait to see what happens next.
From the Epicenter 