Where are we coming from in our collective thought processes? Are we coming from a place of fear that dictates that everything and everyone is a danger? The status quo of the moment says that’s entirely logical. Is it possible for us to come from a place of wisdom that accepts complexity, which allows for thinking with our compassionate hearts as much as with our fear-driven heads?
Many in government and science right now might say that’s foolhardy. Save lives, save lives, save lives… lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. It’s almost an invitation for increased panic and fear. But that’s not what’s worked in Singapore, Taiwan, Denmark, Germany and elsewhere. They’ve done just fine by scrupulously tracking infection cases, quarantining only the sick and those in their immediate proximity. Of course, they have highly functional state medical systems which we in the U.S. do not. But if you express reservations like those above you risk ridicule. There needs to be space for conversation available to all of us who want to discuss the social and psychological (and even political!) costs of fear.
My girlfriend’s sister, though white herself, has an African-American teenage son. She worries that when he walks into a store with a protective mask, because of unconscious racial bias, he will instantly be judged a dangerous intruder, a potential robber or worse, then shot, maybe even killed. She lives in San Francisco, a “progressive” city, where the fear is nonetheless still present for her. I can only imagine what the fear might be like for her if her son ventured into stores in small towns in Utah where the presence of people of color is uncommon and many people are armed.
My friend Ben is an emergency room physician. He recently sent out an impassioned email imploring everyone he knows to please stay home and observe “shelter in place.” As you know, too many health care workers are falling sick and dying due to improper medical supplies. “Sheltering in place” helps them and us by limiting the flow of patients.
But the facts themselves are inconclusive. This is some of what I know: 50–60% of the population will likely contract the virus. Many, perhaps most of those people will manifest only mild symptoms or none at all. Stay at home orders are only a stopgap measure to “flatten the curve” so health care institutions can accommodate all the sick and workers are not overwhelmed and put at greater risk. The surges in infection rates will ebb and flow as mobility restrictions are eased and expanded. To my knowledge no one has yet articulated an endgame other than in as much as 2–3 years time the virus either burns itself out or a vaccine is found.
There is absolutely no definitive guideline for behavior that will 100% inure anyone against infection. It doesn’t exist. Other than staying at home alone, never going out, and disinfecting everything that enters your home, it’s completely useless to conjure notions of absolute safety. Given how long the virus can live on different surfaces (and linger up to three hours in the air), given how relentless washing of hands and never touching one’s face is no guarantee whatsoever against infection, and given how people can be carriers while not manifesting any symptoms, we have to accept we’re in a sea of uncertainty. In times of crisis people inevitably want to cling to absolute verities. But there are no absolute verities to cling to. Not now, not ever.
COVID-19 will run its course, which may, in the end, prove devastating in its scale of human loss and suffering. As a 64 year old diabetic I am considered high risk. No doubt I’m luckier than many because I already lead a very simple, semi-quarantined life — no children, no nearby family; I work at home, enjoying my evening solitude with reading or movies…Present logic dictates that it doesn’t make sense for me to see my girlfriend now since she lives with her two adult sons, a sister, and two younger nephews. There’s no telling what “foreign influences” they could bring into the home with her. But not seeing her at all doesn’t strike me as a wise choice. Living without giving and receiving companionship and love is not wholesome, not conducive to my well-being. I’m perfectly comfortable with the risks.
Everyone has to make their own personal risk assessments. But what are we to make of the course the disease is taking and will take? How are we as humans to react and behave in the wake of these challenges?
Personally, I have greater fear of the behavior of my fellow citizens than I do of the disease itself. Knowing there is yet another huge surge in gun sales is not comforting. Hearing of spikes in domestic violence and child abuse is worse. So is hearing how people in small towns outside New York City are forbidding or restricting city dwellers from entering their towns. In one upstate New York town, locals cut down a tree to block a car from ever leaving a house that a family of city dwellers had relocated to. It is humans themselves, not as carriers of disease but as carriers of bad behavior, who may be the worst plague that befalls us.
Two days ago I asked a friend if she wanted to take a walk around Oakland’s beautiful, and, for now open, Lake Merritt Park. She said yes, but later wrote back asking about my own safety practices. She was concerned because her lover has a compromised immune system. I’m heartened that she would take precautions to limit the risk but I thought her question a fruitless one.
I could spend hours detailing to my friend what my own safety practices are — all the people and places I’ve come into contact with over the last 2–3 weeks — leaving her to decide whether I’m a safe risk or not. (And, for the record, people in hotels are being scrupulous. Our rooms were wiped down and sanitized, even luggage carts. Credit cards we inserted ourselves into machines). But what is going to eventually drive her decision? The truth of whether I’m truly safe is an unknown compounded by unknowns. I could be completely infection free until I’m on my way to visit her and then infected in the last minute.
There are WHO and, in the U.S., CDC guidelines for maximizing safety. I have largely followed those. But so what? In the end, anything I say to her is likely insufficient. Ultimately she would have to decide for herself whether I’m safe enough to meet with, even at six feet. And what would drive that decision? Most likely, fear. So if that’s to be the order of the day, then let’s dispense with preliminaries and agree to meet by phone to begin with. I don’t want to be forced into a position to defend myself when no definitive standard exists, sucked into a vortex of someone else’s fears. That’s not how I choose to live my life.
So I take precautions, absolutely. I do my utmost to make wise decisions. But I also do my utmost to ask myself, “Where exactly is this decision coming from? Is it coming from a place of fear or love?” To come from a place of love doesn’t mean throw caution to the wind, go soft and squishy. It means weighing into the decision other questions like, “How will my decision impact other facets of my life, like my emotional well-being, my mental health, and my peace of mind? How might this decision affect others? What is the greatest good here? Not only for myself, but for the greatest number?”
I make the best decisions I can but after that I let it go. I do my best to find a way to swim comfortably in this sea of uncertainty. This is what half a lifetime of practice in meditation and Buddhist study has helped prepare me for. Where can I most find peace and stability? In making skillful choices, which includes limiting the tidal wave of fear coming at me through media and by getting out and enjoying nature — reminding myself that much of the natural world existed long before humans walked the planet and will still be here long after COVID-19 is a distant memory.
I trust the groundlessness of existence, the fact that everything changes, not the islands of temporal belief and emotion. I trust Clear Deep Heart/Mind, also known as Buddha nature. I know that equanimity is available to us in any place and in any moment.
Drop in. You’ll find it on the other side of fear.