In his famous book, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes observed that life for men in the state of nature was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Perhaps no writer in the English language has ever penned a more accurate description of what life was like for the typical person for the vast majority of human history. “No arts; no letters; no society; and worst of all, the continual fear of violent death.”
In our time, life has taken on a much calmer aspect, at least for most of us in the West. We live longer, fuller, happier lives than our ancestors could ever have dreamed possible. But, just when we are at the peak of our opulent and arrogant leisure, along comes a hurricane or a line of tornados as a reminder of how powerless we are against the forces of nature. And now the Coronavirus arrives on the scene of our brave new sheltered life and we are momentarily disoriented. It knocks us off of our high horse. In time, and I believe soon, we will once again find our bearings and be on our way. But, just for a minute, while we are down on the ground, let’s take a good look at ourselves and take inventory.
My dad observed that hard times don’t build character, they reveal it. At crunch time, what’s down in the well, always comes up in the bucket, he would insist. My dad was a wise man.
It would do us all well to consider that our kids are watching us right now. Younger generations are looking to the grownups for cues on how to react to the unprecedented. One day, our grandchildren will want to know what it was like to live through the great pandemic, or whatever name the historians will assign to COVID-19. They will ask us what we did. What will we tell them?
Will we tell them that we spent our time mocking those who took it seriously enough to take precautions? Will we have to admit that we were too busy going on vacations and publishing pictures of our carefree frolicking in an attempt to shame our more cautious friends? Or will we have to tell the embarrassing story of the trips to the grocery store where we bought a pickup truck full of toilet paper and hand sanitizer? Will we be one of those who have to admit that we gave in to our greed and jacked up the price of some scarce commodity to make a fast buck? Will we have to tell our grandchildren that at the time we were so addled by partisan politics that all we cared about was how the crisis was affecting our side, rendering us useless to our neighbors.
But, make no mistake...history will judge us. What I hope I am able to tell my grandchildren (whenever I finally have some!) is that I kept my wits about me. I showed up for work, did my job under difficult conditions with vigor and confidence. I looked out for my neighbor, took special care of the vulnerable. I helped people stay focused on what was important, not be terrified into mistakes great and small. I kept my sense of humor about me, refused to lose heart, refused to give myself over to undue pessimism and despair. I kept the jokes coming.
The kids are watching us. Let’s create a great story to tell.
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