Aldous Huxley wrote “Brave New World”, a futuristic novel about scientific progress and oppressive government run amok; it was 1931. Only one human, the novel’s protagonist could both resist and push back. Thus the title. Against all odds a single soul stood between a humanist culture and a dystopian, artificial intelligence based society. The whole thing makes me think of the television series, Star Trek. Patric Stewart was the protagonist, captured by the “Borg”, a bionic cross-breed race. The sole purpose of the Borg was to subdue and subjugate everyone, everywhere. In this new century 2020, futurist-historian Yuval Harari has been reading the same tea leaves with concerns about artificial intelligence replacing the brain’s ability to guide human affairs. Incredible: along comes a microbe, an extremely contagious virus that upends everything. Even if it proves fatal for only a small segment of humanity, human constructs like economics, commerce, transportation, etc., they become inefficient and what’s worse, unprofitable. So I’ve made the bridge, from Huxley’s brave new world to another new world, the Covid-19 pandemic.
In my brave new world, I would be the protagonist but I have no leverage against virulent biology, greedy economics or tribal governance. I’m just an old (expendable) human being. This pandemic is not the first but it’s been a long time since we experienced one and the human footprint has changed drastically since the Spanish Flu in 1918. 50 million fatalities in a world of less than 2 billion souls. Since 1918, global population density has roughly quadrupled and individual mobility around the planet is both rapid and easily facilitated. Nobody old enough to remember the flu pandemic first hand so Coronavirus might as well be a new paradigm.
My journal, this blog; they have been a way for me to process and share ideas but in my brave new world, nothing relates to the user-friendly world that I was so accustomed to. At this point I’m going to start documenting my day to day feelings and concerns as they stray from one concern to another. Off the top, I am preoccupied with how divided and diverse we are with the way global risk and its fallout are experienced. For the moment, I am well and safe. For the moment, my retirement benefits shelter me from a raging economic storm. For the moment, my health is good. I have a safe, secure place to hunker down, isolated from people who carry the virus. But the ultimate truth is that the margin of error for me is zero. It goes without saying, as an octogenarian, the reality of one’s own mortality is never more than a thought removed. You can’t get this far and not see the dark behind the light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s like acrophobia, the fear of high places. How close to the boundary can you get without feeling uncomfortable? I have to admit, I can see over the edge.
I went to virtual church this morning. We are Unitarians, a Humanist community where each member is responsible for the shape of their own particular belief system. Not many, if any traditional sons of Abraham worshiping there. But religion casts a big shadow. Like any community that ponders human origins, our purpose here on earth and how people should value not only our Mother Earth but also how we treat each other, it comes out religion. Our service is pretty sophisticated considering the makeshift technology. We have responsive readings where it feels like, sounds like we are all together in the same room. Singing has the same collective effect. Today we celebrated Earth Day. Together we sang “Blue Boat Home.” There are several powerful verses, all provocative but the chorus left me feeling like a Jehovah’s Witness at Pentecost, emotionally charged and totally humbled. It goes; I’ve been sailing all of my life now: Never harbor or port have I known: The wide universe is the Ocean I travel: And the Earth is my blue boat home.
Sundays have been pretty good while Mondays have not. I am slow to chart my way through this global mine field. I am part of a high risk demographic. At my age if I contract the virus the odds are against me, it may very well kill me. At the same time, I grieve for all of the world. The wonderful side of free market Capitalism has left us defenseless to an attack on its vulnerable under-belly. Strength has become a weakness and fiscal feasibility would seem an oxymoron. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We are supposed to learn from history but leaders can't remember history's lessons and can't see beyond the next election. Some experts had been predicting pandemic for years but those concerns were received like Chicken Little’s warning, the sky is falling. I think it was Chief Joseph who cautioned the U.S. General at the treaty signing, “You can’t eat your money.”
Sleep is tricky. I never know if I’ll get what I need, only that I will get what I get. Physical work and talking with friends and family seem to be the best medicine for my necessary quarantine. It’s been 6 weeks now and the future looks like more of the same, a whole lot more. It is not about, ‘When do we get back to normal?’ There will be a new normal and that is scary when no one is in control.
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