It's Happened Before
These are the times they have always been.
When I was a younger man who, for some unknown reason, was into coffee table books (insert Shrugging Man emoji here), I perused a photo book of images captured at crime scenes back when the world was shot in black and white. If memory serves me correctly, they were post-WWI and pre-WWII, depictions of gore and tragedy, mangled bodies at vehicle collisions, bleeding rioters, jumpers, homicide victims laid out on damp sidewalks; chalk outlines, barricades, fire lines, uniforms and detectives in fedoras in the fore and backgrounds. I glanced at the back cover and saw a quote about the book, in the spot wherein you expect to find praise urging you to purchase said book. The quote simply stated, “Proof that there were never any Good Old Days.”
Currently, I’m in the (hopefully) final stages of a self-imposed and physician-agreed-with quarantine, in light of either complications of seasonal allergies or… a potentially deadly virus! Exciting times! Anyhow, I’m feeling good and should emerge from my cave of backyard workouts, kitchen experiments, Airport Rules beer consumption, and video games shortly. And as I write this the Covid-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the world. Many are not as fortunate as I. Many are sick and have died. All projections indicate it will get worse before it gets better.
It’s easy to be disheartened by this. It’s seductive to be angry, and vengeful because of this. It’s understandable to be overwhelmed and depressed by it. None of this will change the reality that it is here, and it is incumbent upon us to do our part to mitigate it, whatever that may be, sheltering in place or manning the front lines or vital supply lines. Howling at the moon and shaking fists at God will do nothing but work the howler and shaker into a frenzy. Frenzied humans, historically, are capable of great evil.
I mentioned the picture book captured images of a time period between two great cataclysms, unimaginable in scale and destruction. Times of extremism, nationalism, and charismatic leaders who blamed their countrymen’s ills upon They Who Are Not Like Us. With those wars came pestilence, disease, and famine. Those who survived WWII, we dubbed The Greatest Generation, and to be clear, I do not devalue their contribution of doing no less than saving the world, by picking up a rifle, ruler or a riveter. Just remember that such people were born of the same stock as you and I. There was no magic other than the conscious choice to help. You have it in you to be as noble as they were.
Viral plagues have, well, plagued humanity as long as we have recorded history. I can think of three or four priors in the last century (plus two years): Influenza, Typhus, Influenza again, Polio and HIV/AIDS. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus has one named after him, the Antonine Plague, and it killed his co-emperor, plus an estimated 5 million other people from slaves all the way to the toast of society. Viruses do not distinguish between hosts. These diseases have decimated the most powerful military on earth and wiped out native populations to aid imperialist conquest. It has all happened before. It’s been much deadlier, at that.
You know how to help, by now. Stay home. Wash your hands. Maintain your distance if you go out to exercise. Don’t go to work if you are sick. Don't hoard. Don’t run a speakeasy (I know, I know, I get it). Don’t lick goddamn toilet seats. And don’t think you are superior because this specific disease originated in a country different than your own.
Superpowers rise and fall. Nations conquer and destroy one another. Borders are only meaningful because we believe they exist. Mobs come for some perceived enemy, They Who Are Not Like Us, and the silent ignore it until the mob decides to come for them. Radicals explode bombs because of diseased self-righteousness. People shoot, stab or beat one another dead in the street. They wrap their cars around telephone poles. They jump from tall buildings because they could see no other way out of this messy reality. We could all of us wind up an image in a gory coffee-table book.
And…
What unimaginable luck we have to be alive. The odds of such a thing happening are so infinitesimal that only a sucker would bet on it (I’ll take the under for $100). This very existence, this reality, all of its war, famine, pestilence and death; and the paradoxical joy, peace, abundance and health, is a gift. I take solace in that. I take solace in knowing that we are not alone in our circumstance. Humanity is still here. We haven’t managed to kill ourselves off, despite many concentrated efforts at just that, some quite fast and obvious and some slower and harder to accept as truth.
There were never any Good Old Days. There was never a Greatest Generation. All of this has happened before and will most likely happen again. We can only learn from the past, do our best in the present, and try to build a better future. Fate, however, may have other plans.
