To survey the emotional landscape:
My baseline feeling is one of industriousness. Staying busy is my go-to cure-all in life. I like to work — idle hands make me anxious. Working from home, though difficult, gives me a purpose and a direction. I appreciate that. I’m actually running out of home improvement projects at this point, save for the never ending tasks of repainting (interior and exterior) and pressure-washing.
Today I wish I was a billionaire philanthropist. I would keep floundering small businesses afloat with a generous outpouring from my coffers.
Added to this feeling is a sense of living in a dystopia. The streets are so quiet at night. I subconsciously notice the lack of airplane noise in the skies overhead.
And today I feel benevolence. I’m sad that I don’t have more money to pump into small businesses. As a family, we’ve been ordering “t go” and delivery meals as our budget allows. I ordered a book from Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon to help keep the beloved indie bookstore afloat.
Today I wish I was a billionaire philanthropist. I would keep floundering small businesses afloat with a generous outpouring from my coffers.
Alas.
I spend my evenings reading COVID news. So much, still, is speculation. Yet I perceive like the more information that I ingest about the virus and pandemic, the more empowered I feel. The more empowered I feel, the less afraid that I am.
What we know from trusted news sources:
-The U.S. Government dropped the ball on preemptive COVID response. Widespread testing and emergency supplies should have been in place by now.
-Many people will die from coronavirus. Likely 200,000-plus in the United States alone.
-This will likely be the new norm for at least two years, when a vaccine is developed. Testing may allow for epidemiologists to track the disease and shut down sectors of society as they monitor the spread of coronavirus. We should all expect a few more quarantines and degrees of social distancing.
-We’re certainly headed for another recession — the second recession of my adult life.
In the midst of this, I can daydream that I am a billionaire philanthropist— pouring money on those who work the hardest with the thinnest of profit margins.
Mercy.
From the Epicenter 