June 17, 2021, Commentary from my favorite sofa

June 17, 2021, Commentary from my favorite sofa: It has been raining a lot. The roads are getting “waterlogged.” That is an interesting term, not sure of the exact origin. It basically means that the streets get flooded because it rains harder than the water can be cleared out by the drainage system. There is a metaphor for life there. Too much comes too fast and it cannot be cleared out. Devdas said it was raining hard, and their neighborhood is in a slightly low-lying area next to the high rises of Newtown. I wonder what their water situation is. On days like this there is a guilty pleasure of sleeping in as the monsoon rain shifts between a pitter patter and the torrent. I know someone who did feel guilty because of getting up a little later than usual, as did I today. Where does this guilt come from? Is it a work ethic? Or is it cumulated anxiety of the uncertainty of the past several months and not knowing where things are going, will there be new business, will there be new work, how will work change. We talk, we plan, we hope. We are still uncertain, and thus waking up a little late, or asking Alexa to add another snooze seems tenuous. This anxiety is becoming pandemic. I sat with six people today, yes six, who all had suffered through COVID-19. They experienced different levels of pain and discomfort. And even with the vaccine they are anxious. There is a sense of not knowing what the rest of the year will bring. My neighbor said there is a real risk of the so-called Delta variant causing issues. What is interesting to me is the way in which this anxiety is also being normalized. This is here to stay, there will be challenges for years many seem to think. And I seem to be repeating myself here as I keep thinking of how else we might treat this. A bondhu said his mother was showing post-COVID-19 symptoms that sounded scarily like symptoms of another person I know who just had the disease, even after two shots of a vaccine. It is almost as if the confusion about the disease is as debilitating as the disease itself. Yet the traffic is back, I can go anywhere I want, and I am not required to wear a mask, I have been unrestricted. There is still a lingering doubt, because not everything is normal. United Airlines sent a reminder to me that I am still required to wear a mask when I fly with them. So, everything is not normal. This is the confusion. Perhaps this is the normal, a different pace, a different set of expectations, and a different way of doing things, a constant sense of confusion. Collective uncertainty. Uncertainty slows us down. We do not know how to act. Eventually we do not act, we flow with the waves and perhaps we realize our desire to control everything is a myth. Slow down, know things will work differently. This maybe it. This may be the change we needed as a civilization. The frenetic life has been slowed down. Economies have changed, and may be much more has to change, things we may not be able to fathom entirely yet. But we must imagine it. Our imagination will help us to redesign and pick up the pieces which seemed to be strewn around – ours to pick up and reassemble so that waking up a little late on a monsoon morning does not cause guilt but can be savored with the confidence that things are OK. Its like the end of Beverly Hills Cop – “trust me” we need to “stir it up”