April
23, 2020
Today’s
observation – As I complete one postponed task after another, and the
surfaces clear of piles of papers and unfinished must-dos, my mental space opens
too. It looks for other targets of attention, asking questions that mostly stand
outside of my day to day thoughts. I am privileged enough to dally among the big
personal existential questions. What would make me happier? Is my job still a
vocation or an occupation? With whom do I want to live when I move from here?
Can I skinny my life down more? Where do I want to travel next? Then another
foot falls, allowing the rest of humanity into my thoughts. There is the story about day workers who have
left to hang out to dry, and so are their resources. Tethered to it are the
forecasts of a hunger pandemic to follow the coronavirus pandemic, while other stories
loom of an IMF forecast for a global economic crisis. Our social media
platforms are thriving as launchpads for misinformation that is undermining democracies
all over the world. When I stand in this arena of concern, my imperatives
reconfigure. I come from a line of dreamers
and planners who occupy today with eyes on tomorrow. And I realize that the simple
questions grow quieter as I widen my perspective and considerations. I hear the
term biblical and epic applied to what is ahead for the coming
year. We have paused together and are
gathering ourselves. Now, do we consume the dire forecasts together too? Those
of us with good fortune and dumb luck for adequate resources, good health, and
a safe place to live are like hothouse flowers. And like many Americans, my family indulged in
implicit shaming if you couldn’t get your life act together under an assumption
that you were suffering as the result of poor planning or careless living. The
morals of Aesop’s fables run amock in the family attitude and lack of empathy. It kept us tucked into another myth, that of a
successful self-made person. There is no
such thing; success is a team sport. Meanwhile, the big questions about what
follows in our lives after this pause are shifting day by day. The more
significant considerations from world watchdog groups bring directives to mind,
more relevant to the times than what will make me happier? Not to get unnecessarily
dark, but maybe we need to train our thoughts on global preparations and
policies that will help us ride out the choppy refugee clogged seas waiting beyond
the eye of this hiatus. The writing on
the wall grows expansive.
Today’s
image – I took another student to the airport today. We stood in that place of
unknowing – excited for her homecoming and apprehensive about how her journey
will go. What we fear are inconveniences,
not real dangers. And I have often marveled at the way we have come to expect a
transglobal trip to happen in total comfort and without incident. We just don’t
do calamity like we used to. If something goes awry, we train our feelings and
our focus on who’s to blame. In my
parents’ lifetime, a trip across the state that went without car trouble or other
mishap was fortunate. Take traveling back
another generation or two, and an uneventful journey never happened. We moved about
outfitted for every contingency we could imagine because one or two things were
sure to go wrong. Life is a struggle. Today,
I subscribe to the school of modern expectations that my student will move through
her destination points like a cog turning through its gears. Still, so much depends on the red wheelbarrow.
Today’s
idea – What drives preservation? A friend shared an article in National
Geographic about the revival of foxes on the Channel Islands off the California
coast. The little daytime predators are iconic, but they were on the brink of
extinction in the 1990s because of a cascade of ecological collapses that were
spawned by European settlers one hundred and fifty years ago. The farmers left, the island made into a
National Park. While vestigial feral pigs made a mess of the island flora, biologists
and park rangers had come to think of the foxes as the healthiest part of the island
ecosystem. So when they began to
disappear, a full-scale investigation was launched. What conclusion rose to the
surface was that a combination of Bald Eagle's decline due to DDT use, a booming feral pig population, and the
arrival of golden eagles resulted in disappearing wild foxes. The golden eagles
had filled a niche left open by the Bald’s vacancy; they came to eat the pigs
and hunted the foxes as an additional snack. The remedy was threefold. Cull the pigs, trap and move the golden eagles,
and reinstate the bald eagle population. Put things back the way they were. Good
old investigative science to the rescue! It provided a depth of knowledge that
gave the biologists and park officials the toe hold they needed to restore
balance in a long broken habitat. The story is uplifting, and we praise the preservation
work and tenacity of dedicated professionals.
Now, in the face of our pending cascade
of collapses, will we invite science and a bevy of benevolent policymakers to come
to our rescue too?
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