Plague Journal (2)

Do the next small thing.

I have always believed in that principle. With many voices telling us that "going big" is the only true way to happiness ("Go big or go home"), I'm for going home and going small.

Laurie and I were talking about working from home. I'm the kind of person that needs to get dressed in his work clothes, sit down at a specially designated "work area," be there on time, etc. Laurie is more the work-in-her-PJs type. She thought she'd take regular breaks in which she'd pick up a little clutter, dispose of some pile of papers, bag some clothes for Goodwill, etc. The next small thing that presents itself.

Yesterday my morning of working home was plagued by a slow Internet (we're working on that), but by midmorning I had fallen into a satisfying (but slow) workflow. After lunch I took a walk, dropping off some books at the neighborhood "Little Free Library," mailing a card to my Mom, picking up a couple of items at the grocery store.

Later in the day I collected the latest CDC numbers for 4 states, the US, and the world. The World Health Organization website was not updating its numbers yesterday, in contrast to apparent frequent updates the day before. In the end I opted for the Johns Hopkins website, which seemed to have more current figures.

Speaking of numbers, it's somewhat heartening to see that China and South Korea seem to be on the other side of the infection-curve. China reported no new infections yesterday, for the first time since this ordeal began. Most of Europe and the U.S., however, are on the front-side of the curve. The hope is that widespread social distancing and quarantining of the sick (now that testing has ramped up) will soften the curve, make the slope less extreme, and perhaps the height less lofty. We hope and pray.

Anyway, the next small thing: pet the dog, talk to your neighbor, call a friend, make some soup, walk around your neighborhood praying, pick up some litter, work on that novel/family tree/jigsaw puzzle, learn something new.

There seems to be a great need for informed concern, and simultaneously a great need not to worry. This is because worry is a soul-eating curse, a ganglion of the spirit, a temptation of the evil one presented as an index of your maturity but in fact is a gateway to numbing and undermining fear. Reject it, and then go and do some small thing.

February 2, 1968, by Wendell Berry

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow,
in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.