It is a paradoxical time of stasis and upheaval.
At the macro level, the world is burning, figuratively and literally (at least in the West where I live). The upcoming election has both political parties highly polarized and in full propaganda mode.
International interference in the upcoming election from unsavory outside actors seems more real and potentially more consequential now than it was in the prior election, where it had a striking impact.
A war on science and facts originating with the administration has created alternate universes that neighbors of differing political persuasions appear to inhabit with very little overlap. In the words of William Black, a former federal prosecutor turned academic, "It's impossible to compete with unintentional parody."
A pandemic has created unemployment levels approaching the Great Depression.
Fires in the Western US have given skies an otherworldly orange glow, with the sun nearly blotted out in some parts of northern California. All that's missing is Nero and a fiddle.
Threats, foreign and domestic, seem to be on a grander scale and more frightening than ever before.
Against this backdrop and its implication that the world as we know it is undergoing radical transformation, the microcosm of my day to day life is unbelievably quotidian and predictable.
- Wake up at dawn and ride a bike along the coastal hills overlooking the Pacific. Alternately, bodyboarding if there's a decent swell. Option 3: sit-ups, push-ups and weights.
- Breakfast with the kids, and being on call for any distance learning issues as default tech support.
- Morning stovetop espresso sipped while luxuriating over a long-form article in the New Yorker.
- Online stuff, email, blog. Call someone I care to check in.
- Lunch with the family, check in on how the day is going.
- Afternoon stovetop espresso sipped while luxuriating in the company of my wife.
- Family time: homework, speed scrabble or Catan, attempts to organize litany of online assignments.
- Dinner with the family.
- Everyone takes a breather before reuniting for a little bread and circus. Lately, it's youtube videos by Mark Rober, a former NASA scientist who makes science engaging during a time when distance learning has caused it to lose some luster.
Every day has taken on the quality of rinse and repeat.
Every day extends a pseudopod and collapses, amoeba-like, into the time before and after.
It is a paradoxical time of stasis and upheaval.