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There is a saying: “We make plans, and God laughs.” Whether or not the word “God” makes sense to you—go ahead and swap it out with the words “life” or “reality” or “Mother Nature”—as a fellow human being, you can probably recognize the truth in the phrase. And you can perhaps recognize the truth in it now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than ever.
One plan I had last week, as the social distancing and self-quarantining was really beginning to get underway, was to write a blog post about the possibility of a silver lining in this crisis. I was going to write about how this virus might enable us, on an individual and collective level, to wake up more fully. Looking back at my notes, I see that I planned to write about the following three forms of awakening that might be possible out of this crisis:
1. Awakening to the fact of our mortality, thereby fueling a greater appreciation of life
2. Awakening to our fundamental solidarity and interdependence as local neighbors and global citizens
3. Awakening to our fundamental connectedness to the (non-human) natural world
A lofty plan, indeed!
In the blog post I also planned to apply my knowledge about solitary retreats to the experience of quarantine, hoping lessons learned from my own retreats and those of others I have studied—such as how to structure your time, how to weave contemplative practices into your day, etc.—might be of use to some readers.
Yet something kept me from writing the post, and it wasn’t my usual resistance to the task. It was more than that. I see now that it was a sense of disingenuousness. I didn’t feel comfortable claiming to have any special knowledge of how to handle this situation. I definitely didn’t feel comfortable attempting to predict what potential silver linings might arise from this horrific situation. Though there might end up being some truth in what I wished to say, my desire to say it seemed to be a way of psychologically defending against the fear and uncertainty I was experiencing in the midst of this pandemic.
I am writing this on 3/27/20. It’s about 10 days into my own shelter-in-place process. Like you, I have been through the gamut of thoughts and feelings related to this crisis, and via teletherapy, I have been trying to help my patients through it at the same time. It’s been tough. For everyone. Yes, humans have been through this before. And yes, we will—most of us, at least—get through this. But we really don’t know how to do this, or what life will be like on the other side.
So in this post, I’ve decided not to try to look for potential silver linings. I’ve decided instead to write about what is apparent to me, at this moment in time. Here is the newly revised list of main points I wish to convey:
1. Life is uncertain.
2. Everything is impermanent.
3. We need to find a way to accept this.
This is difficult medicine to swallow. But if we can really get it, it might serve to protect us against some amount of unnecessary suffering—the kind that goes on between our ears.
What we believe to be the case today might not be the case tomorrow. The United States, where I live, enjoyed a strong economy with low unemployment numbers just two weeks ago. Our economy has now ground to a halt. We went from a nation of fast-paced overworkers to slow-moving shut-ins over the same period of time. Fellow citizens went from healthy to fighting for their lives. A country that believes so strongly in self-determination and its own exceptionalism has been brought to its knees by a microbe.
None of us knows what’s on the other side of this, nor what may befall us tomorrow. But we do know what’s actually happening at this moment. And then this moment. And then this moment. As I sit here writing this post, I know that I can feel the warmth and weight of my cat on my lap, the coolness of the air on my skin, and the faint sound of sirens in the distance. I can also sense a touch of fear and tension in my body, which I can bring a gentle awareness to.
In sensing these things, I am tuning into the stream of reality. I can return to this stream whenever I find myself going off in a catastrophic thought spiral about the crisis and where we might be headed. I can come back to the reality of this moment. The practice of coming back to reality can be difficult, though. It’s not difficult because we lack the ability to do it. It’s difficult because we aren’t in the practice of doing it. We need to exercise that muscle.
Throughout this quarantine, I’ve been taking a daily walk in the park near my home. I’m getting to know the trees better and have been observing the buds starting to blossom. There are subtle changes happening every day. If this crisis hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I would have thought, “Spring is almost here,” but I would have missed out on the unfolding of it.
I’ve been trying to bring this awareness of the changing of the trees to my own daily life while in quarantine. I am different than I was an hour or two ago when I started writing this post. Though I like to entertain the fantasy that I am a fixed being called “Karin,” I am actually an experiential flow that shifts and changes with every moment, like a river.
I try to bring this awareness to the crisis we are all living through. It, too, is like a river, albeit an unexpected rushing torrent, changing and shifting with each passing day. Can I do what I can to protect myself in the midst of it—making sure I have a life jacket (like washing my hands, social distancing, etc.)—but also stop fighting unnecessarily against the current?
Can I do my best to take it one day at a time? Indeed, one moment at a time, and try to breathe in the midst of it? If I spend too much time thinking about the river and where I might end up once it runs its course, I could end up drowning or unnecessarily exhausting myself in the process.
A close friend of mine sent me the following verse written by the Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner at the beginning of this crisis. Offering it to you seems a fitting place to end this blog post. You needn’t necessarily resonate with the spiritual tone of Steiner’s message to grasp its directive that we learn “to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence.” What might that mean to you, to progressively let go of the notion of security and live out of a greater trust in the flow of life?
Perhaps by accepting the radical uncertainty of life, we can live more fully, and more freely. Perhaps by accepting the radical uncertainty of life, we can find ourselves navigating this crisis with greater ease. May it be so.
A Verse for Our Time
We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.
We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity
To everything that may come.
And we must think only that whatever comes
Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust,
Without any security in existence.
Trust in the ever present help
Of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do
If our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves
Every morning and every evening.
—Rudolf Steiner
