Is Saturday April 25, 2020
“Desiderata,” by Max Ehrmann: "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." This piece of the poem, copyrighted in 1927, reminds us to continue in sound minds when the world around us in turmoil and find peace in quiet moments.
The world has been turned on end as the virus known as Covid19 has wormed its way across the globe to the result of nearly 3 million infected persons and almost 300,000 deaths. It has closed economy to a position the world has not seen in over 100 years. It has sheltered people to their homes, closing schools, churches, major sports leagues and all non-essential businesses in an unprecedented way. The surrealities of it all.
In fact, the surreal feeling we are having during this time of pandemonium is valid. As surreal art was born after WW I, it was depicted by pieces of anti-art and the feeling of non-reason. The art dared to define reason just like this pandemic. Best described by André Breton, who published The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, ".Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality.”
The persistence of memory by Salvador Dali (1931) Many of us may feel the passage of time to be like this. As these days in quarantine seem to not only melt into one another, but go by so slowly as the hours wilt away by the boredom we are inflicted with and trapped by.
How the pandemic affects each one of us is different in both the physical and psychological way. Some are infected with minor symptoms and some in fact are with no symptoms at all while others are brought to the angel of death within days with no hope of recovery. Undoubtedly the psychological experience has been similarly surreal.
Wherein some are rising to meet the challenge and striving to help others and be a positive influence for the cause while others have withered from the sheer enormity of the disease and its wrath and gone into hiding taking the shelter-at-home to a fear factor level of gun buying and food hoarding. Thus we are reminded again by Max Ehrmann, we have choice. A choice to be strong and stand tall among the suffering and to "Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness"
How the pandemic affects each one of us is different in both the physical and psychological way. Some are infected with minor symptoms and some in fact are with no symptoms at all while others are brought to the angel of death within days with no hope of recovery. Undoubtedly the psychological experience has been similarly surreal.
Wherein some are rising to meet the challenge and striving to help others and be a positive influence for the cause while others have withered from the sheer enormity of the disease and its wrath and gone into hiding taking the shelter-at-home to a fear factor level of gun buying and food hoarding. Thus we are reminded again by Max Ehrmann, we have choice. A choice to be strong and stand tall among the suffering and to "Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness"
This should be our path during these uncertain times. Be bold and smart, find ways to connect with others while not in a physical sense but in a spiritual way that promotes mindful health and a powerful spirit. Use your skills for the good of all. If you're a teacher, teach. If you're an artist make art. Create, say and do things that help people find a way to Nurture strength of spirit to shield...[them ]...in sudden misfortune.
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