PANDEMIC PONDERING - Excerpts from the 2020 Journal
(Continued from page 5)
The great irony for me during this time has been that I actually feel closer to other people. There is time now to care because there is time now to pay attention. I get so busy in my normal day with my to do lists and calendar of deadlines, that I become numb to the living going on around me.
I get farther and farther away from what matters, but then wonder why I feel empty and alone. My wondering has taken me in a new direction the last six days; is normal something that should be returned to or is it an awakening that we really need? Looking back over the month of February, I see a man running to get things done. That thing we called normal prevented me from paying attention to interactions with those I love. There was a series of predictable reactive patterns that seemed to run my life. I tend to fall into these patterns because they create the illusion that I am in control. This false sense of self craves comfort not character and, therefore, stays stuck in the past.
I have been listening to people and reading about our world's insane reactions to this pandemic. Understandably, there is a lot of talk that focuses on how "this was done to me." We will spend the rest of my lifetime figuring out why, and how this happened, and then of course find many to blame. This, for some reason, does not feel important to me now. Marcus Aurelius said:
"It is my bad luck that this has happened to me. No, you should rather say: It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present not fearful of the future."
Some days when the news and misinformation triggers my need to be enraged, I forget this. Feeling like a victim ready to retaliate, I lose perspective on my good fortune; my good fortune is not always success it is in fact the ability to bear difficult things. I recognize that some do, even many, do not have this good fortune. My point is that my attitude is shaped by my fortune (literal and figurative) and this attitude makes the man that I am. It is this many that I want others to see as I step into this world to do my work.