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November 13, 2020

For those of You longing to Return to Normal.

For a nation that’s ready to get on with it, but has gone from 100,000 cases for the first time to over 160,000 cases in just the last few days…

Thanksgiving. Christmas. Travel. Adventures. Yoga retreats. Working with our colleagues at the office. Happy hours. Farmers Markets.

We long to return to that Normal.

An airplane takes off against the wind not to fulfill some poetic metaphor, but because it is fired, powered, by fossil fuels. It fights reality, and in so doing damages it, allowing us to see beyond the skein of Time and Nature.

The phrase the “New Normal” has arisen precisely because while we need to return the basic goodness and peace and community and human touch we so miss, our old “Normal” was destroying this planet, our home—and with it our children and future generations.

As for the comfort of that Marcus Aurelius quote…

“Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.”

And commentary: “In other words; whatever kind of hardship comes on your path; you will be able to deal with it.”

…we may be formed by Nature to handle many challenges, but that’s a promise dependent on class, gender, and privilege—so many, so vulnerable have lost their only jobs, homes, security, even lives.

 

 

image: Christine Roy/Unsplash.

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