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Hello everyone,
I hope you are well. This week, as about five billion people on this Earth are slowing down, we are beginning to notice a shift in general attitude. From panic and denial, now it is acceptance (and a bit of resignation). This new way of life - physical distancing, being online for most interactions, limited traveling - will be here for a while. With acceptance comes proactivity. Maybe we can choose the kind of person we are in this time rather than reacting.
This graph has been circulated in the online world this week worth pondering on.
On that note of stepping into the growth zone, I discovered a role model from the Harry Potter series I rewatched a bit this week. It's Neville Longbottom.
If Harry is a story of reluctantly coming to terms with accepting his chosenness (as The Boy Who Lived) through a series of struggle, existential crises and Aha revelations, then Neville plays a much simpler, less sexy but not necessarily easier.
Through the series, from an always frightened young boy, Neville has slowly become more and more courageous. From stepping up more in Dumbledore's Army to stepping out to challenge Voldemort in the last fight to slaying Nagini with the Gryffindor sword, he does exactly the right thing at the right time. Yet it's not a heroic big Courage but rather courageous small thing in the moment that is just slightly beyond himself.
It's a humble and beautiful transformation.
Perhaps the world needs more people like Neville, who tentatively yet consistently chooses himself, stepping up in his own small ways and does what he could.
May we all practice this small form of courage, when we can: reaching out to someone, saying something kind, trying something new.
Khuyen
p/s: I'm not that big of a Harry Potter geek so please forgive my analysis.
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Reading
Some of the longer passages that got me thinking this week
COVID-19: A WAR BROKE OUT IN HEAVEN a beautiful essay by the philosopher and teacher Zachary Stein. It's an invitation for a truly new way of being. Here is an excerpt.
"To be with each other in reality, to be with the reality of each other, means taking the time to step out of the simulations of reality presented on our many screens. If screens must be used for real-time communication, see through them and into the facticity of the person, however far away, and witness them being transmitted through immensely complex fiberoptic lattices and rare-earth metals.
In whatever way is possible, be with the people you are with today, not longing for yesterday’s version of them, which has gone along with their world. Help each other to become new people, otherwise we will all demand that the world be put back together again, just as it was. That can’t happen; it is physically and logistically impossible. But even if we could return it would be a mistake, because that world was self-terminating, almost by design, and running on borrowed time."
The Coronation by Charles Eisenstein.
The long awaited essay from a pioneer sense-maker of our time. If you haven't read it, give yourself 30 mins for a treat. There is also an audio version if you prefer. In this, he has a comprehensive treatment on the two themes of human civilization made clear at this time: the impulse to control and the denial of death. Here is the inspiring conclusion.
And now let me venture into speculative territory. Perhaps the great diseases of civilization have quickened our biological and cultural evolution, bestowing key genetic information and offering both individual and collective initiation. Could the current pandemic be just that? Novel RNA codes are spreading from human to human, imbuing us with new genetic information; at the same time, we are receiving other, esoteric, “codes” that ride the back of the biological ones, disrupting our narratives and systems in the same way that an illness disrupts bodily physiology. The phenomenon follows the template of initiation: separation from normality, followed by a dilemma, breakdown, or ordeal, followed (if it is to be complete) by reintegration and celebration.Now the question arises: Initiation into what? What is the specific nature and purpose of this initiation? The popular name for the pandemic offers a clue: coronavirus. A corona is a crown. “Novel coronavirus pandemic” means “a new coronation for all.”
Listening
A wonderful summary of a well known novel of the philosopher Albert Camus called the Plague, which couldn't be more relevant at this time. Also a longer discussion of the novel here on LitHub
Seth Godin on the Moment (with audio & notes)
Solid, level-headed perspective on using this time well, by using it to clarify what's really important. More notes here.
Tactics for Relationships in Lockdown a timely Q&A episode with the renowned couple therapist & relationship expert Esther Perel on this trying time.
Quotes
"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others. ... On the other hand, wretchedness — life’s painful aspect — softens us up considerably. ... [B]ut if we were only wretched ... we’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us; the other softens us. They go together." — Pema Chödrön
A good reminder on why to embrace both the beauty and terror of the world right now.
Lastly..
A question I was asked by a friend of mine this week that I thought worth sharing.
What is the crossroad you find yourself being at right now?
I'd love to hear your response. Why? Because we are always at a crossroad, and it's worth articulating what it is.
Hang in tight,
Khuyen