Diary of a Viral Apocalypse

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how I’m feeling, as we watch this slow motion viral apocalypse unfolding. If I’m honest with myself, I’m scared for the future—not just for myself and my family, and the impact an economic crash could have on us, but for my parents and in-laws’ health, for my friends who have been laid off already, and more generally for the impact this is going to have on the most vulnerable around us—and because I don’t know what tomorrow holds, how bad this is truly going to get, I’m constantly anxious.

My orientation is almost always toward the future. (My wife and I have a running joke that while she’s thinking about what’s for dinner, I’m thinking about where we’re going to retire.) I usually struggle with being in the present, with being content with the moment. But this virus has violently forced us all into the present. All of our future plans, for now, have been put on hold, or erased completely. And this is just getting started.

What is encouraging to me is how many people I’ve seen step up: friends who’ve organized fundraisers for health workers, or musicians out of work; people who’ve spread the right information about health precautions even when the federal government has been asleep at the wheel. I’ve seen most of us who’ve had an orientation to building online community over the past decade or so see it as our responsibility to make sure those communities have the right kind of information about what has been a slow-moving-until-it-was-fast disaster. If you’re looking to take Mr. Rogers’ advice to find the helpers, you shouldn’t have to look too far.

At 18 Coffees, we’ve tried to pivot what was going to be a fruitful spring of offline events to supporting our community online as much as we can, trying to find new digital connection points to head off a loneliness epidemic. (You’re invited, by the way.)

Even as I’m not sure what the future holds, I am sure that we’re going to come out of this disaster stronger as a global community. What this virus has shown us is how much we take for granted about the threads that hold society together, and how much work we have to do to make sure those bonds are reinforced. In the U.S. we have a lot of work to do on a social safety net that has been slowly eroded over the past 40 years, especially with regard to health care. But the next time our family travels to see family in Europe, or gets a package delivered from China, or even greets the mail carrier on the street without thinking six feet! six feet! we’ll do so with newfound gratitude.

How are you adjusting to the new normal?