"Back to Your Room!"

My view of the pandemic was simple. Mother Nature was furious with us and sent us to our room for a long time-out. “Go to your room!” she demanded. “And stay there for a year-and-a half or so. I want you to think long and hard about what you’ve done and don’t come out again until you’re ready to apologize and promise to do better.”

 

And for some of us, that’s exactly what happened. People who never gave a single thought to something like “Black Lives Matter” had the time and space to consider that they do and came out with an enlarged viewpoint. People estranged from family and friends finally understood what they meant. People starved for human touch and contact came out with renewed appreciation of the simple hug or touch on the arm. People who struggled with Zoom lag time finally could sing together again in real time and wasn’t that glorious!

 

But of course, like New Year’s Resolutions, a few months back into “business as usual” and it all became again “business as usual.” As if we had learned absolutely nothing. 

 

Take schools. What should have been an epiphany that would send the machines into the corners, only to be brought out to show videos of Louis and Dizzy, the Nicholas Brothers dancing, an occasional artful Powerpoint or Documentary presentation that fed our intellect, our heart, our courage to do better, went back to machines taking over education. The STEM programs continued to thrive, because of course, we need science to show us how to further dominate the earth we have distanced us from. We need technology to poison young children with rampant social media that preys on their tender psyches. We need engineering to build rockets to the moon for Jeff Bezos and his band of crazies. We need math for… hmm., exactly what? When was the last time you did even simple addition and subtraction, or multiplication and division, never mind algebra, trigonometry, calculus and such? 

 

In short, the very things that got us into this mess—rampant, unchecked, scientific knowledge and technological know-how, the very things that brought us the assault rifle, the atom bomb, Twitter, robots replacing human caregivers, driverless cars— are still the kinds of things we think we need to prepare the next generation to make. Of course, not automatically so. Science, technology, engineering and math in service of the best of our humanity has its place in history as well and could be useful in helping build a sustainable, equitable and humanitarian future. 

 

But only with clear intention about their roles and clear attention about their limitations and clear understanding of easily they overwhelm us. It is clear that we are not equal to our creations. The potential benevolence of electronic communication and connection has become the toxic wasteland of malevolent scams, flaming, bullying, to give just one example. 

 

But we are equal to our artistic creations. Or rather, they have the power to raise us into the higher levels of intellect, emotion, kindness and beauty. When trained into the intricate intellect of a Bach fugue, a gamelan composition, a Duke Ellington piece, an Indian raga, we have the possibility of accessing our neo-cortic inheritance and marrying it to the feeling heart and dancing body. Yet while STEM thrives, the arts are yet again on the chopping block, here, there and everywhere. 

 

And so we have failed the pandemic test. When the people in Italy singing on balconies during the lockdown reminded us of what is truly important, again we have forgotten. When the Youtube video (benevolent technology when used well!) shows us the young woman playing a heart-rendering Chopin piece in the rubble of her Ukranian apartment, we see both our triumph and failure as a species side-by-side. 

 

Can we please learn our lesson without having to go into our room again with another pandemic? I wouldn’t blame Mother Nature if she shook her finger yet harder and told us, “You have learned nothing! You’re grounded again! This is your last chance to come out of your room and show me you understand what it is to be a decent human being!” 

And so I beseech us all to learn the lesson now and for good. I can’t stand the thought of living yet again inside the small room of our gigantic failures. And I imagine you can’t either.