Tapestries-22 | Things happen
Reflecting on the eve of Yom Kippur.
It's been shown time and again that people are terrible at evaluating risk. I'm no different. I've fundamentally changed my life in the last few months to protect against a virus that's unlikely to kill me (in the event I contract it at all), but won't wear a helmet on a ride to work where the potential downside is significantly more likely and immediate.
I noticed a similar phenomena when I was younger and prone to more risk-taking behavior. As I've gotten older, I've realized that accidents just "happen". There is no lead-up, where time slows down, where you're granted the opportunity to extricate yourself from what's become an out-of-control situation. Car crashes happen in fractions of a second, overdoses are set in motion at the moment of ingestion, and dangerous situations occur when overseas simply by turning the wrong corner.
I'm not suggesting the probability of these things happening is high, only that we overestimate our ability to regain control and underestimate the absolutely mundane way tragedy unfolds. We assume the drama of the outcome will be matched by a dramatic lead-up. I'm not a parent yet, but I think this sits at the core of their concern for their children; young people just don't effectively perceive risk and overestimate agency.
But this affliction does not belong exclusively to the young or the individual. It can occur on a society-wide scale, and arguably that's what we're seeing in the US now. In the car crash analogy above, it's almost like we expect to see the car running the stop sign, hear the horn and the screeching of tires, and feel we'll be able to swerve away from the oncoming vehicle, all while avoiding pedestrians, other cars, and certain injury. It's not plausible. But is what's going on in the US and the obvious societal decay on display, so different? Are we not watching the country come apart at the seams, while telling ourselves that a favorable election result will help us shift course? Sometimes I feel like we're that car approaching the intersection.
This analogy returned to me today after reading this piece, where the author, describing living through Sri Lanka’s civil war, opened with a powerful paragraph that articulated something I've recently been thinking:
"I lived through the end of a civil war. Do you know what it was like for me? Quite normal. I went to work, I went out, I dated. This is what Americans don’t understand. They’re waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. That’s not how it happens. This is how it happens. Precisely what you’re feeling now. The numbing litany of bad news. The ever rising outrages. People suffering, dying, and protesting all around you, while you think about dinner. If you’re trying to carry on while people around you die, your society is not collapsing. It’s already fallen down."
On the one hand, I've considered that the growing hysteria in recent weeks around the survival of liberal democracy is just that, slightly hysterical. I've rationalized that despite the noise, Joe Biden has maintained a consistent lead in what's been a pretty steady race in the polls, and that should he hold onto that lead, he who is encouraging the breaking of democratic principles will be vanquished. But then I read pieces like the one above, or this one, and am pulled back into a different reality. One where it is made abundantly clear that this is exactly what the breakdown of democracy could or does look like.
I am not an advocate of the Washington Post's "The Reichstag is burning" headline, but perhaps that's the situation we may find ourselves in over the coming weeks and months. It's alarmist, but maybe we should be more alarmed. I've previously written that while 2020 feels like one dizzying calamity after another, it's probably going to read quite coherently when the history of this period is eventually written.
What do we do in response? I'm not sure. I am in this country as a temporary resident, as someone who loves and admires what it has has traditionally stood for. I despair thinking about what a world order with a different country at the helm could look like. The question is distinctly American, and therefore not one I can directly impact without a vote, while also being entirely universal if we're talking about the fate of democracy.
I considered writing the calming counterpoint to this view only yesterday, and am sure in the coming weeks I'll continue oscillating between calm and not-so-calm. But today is the eve of Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest day and a time of deliberate and focused introspection. A time to be fully present and remove the emotional gyrations this year has forced upon us. Bari Weiss gives a modern introduction for what this day demands:
“It is the one day of the year when we Jews are asked to look our mortality in the face. The words we recite on Yom Kippur make that challenge perfectly clear: “How many will pass away and how many will be born? Who will live and who will die?” The images — of God writing us in the book of life or death, of us begging for mercy and kindness, of gates closing — are so stark and, frankly, so scary that many people want to turn away. The day asks us to sustain the stare.”
I personally haven't lived through this type of global volatility in my short lifetime. But as a Jew, I can appreciate that for 2,000 years before me, my ancestors were significantly more likely to observe Yom Kippur in times of upheaval and uncertainty than in times of peace. The level of prosperity and security we have enjoyed is directly related to the existence of the State of Israel, which itself would not exist in its current form without the ongoing support it receives from the US. This state of affairs is absolutely the exception to the rule, and our history should teach us to value and appreciate it, and not take it for granted.
I'm not sure what the next few weeks hold. But for the next 25 hours, without the noise of the outside world, let's hope for some inner quiet, which just may be the key to arresting this mess. Let us sustain the stare even for a moment, and emerge focused and resolute.
Photo by Igor Lepilin