Sweet December
There is a Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves movie, made twenty years ago called Sweet November, a remake of and even older movie of the same name. It is a strange love story about a straight-laced man and an iconoclastic woman, who meet through a chance encounter at the DMV and decide to spend the calendar month of November together. The whole point of the story is the randomness of life and why it is better to let fate guide you through life rather than overthink your every step and end up sub-optimizing your happiness. I liked the movie when I saw it on release and haven’t seen it again since (though I will watch it tonight because it has come to mind). While I have forgotten many of the nuances of the film, the high-level theme and especially the title have stayed with me and I have recalled it many times over the years. When thinking about this year’s unusual holiday month (now that we are in it by almost a week) I have decided that it is a sweet month and serendipity plays a part in that feeling that despite all the traumas of the world and all the things that are less than perfect, life is sweet and there is no better month to reflect on that than the last month of the year which is ushered in by giving thanks and ends with praising the outgoing of the old and incoming of the new. This is not to mention the almost non-sectarian wish to praise our lords and peel the bells of hope for a rebirth of salvation. So Sweet December seems so much more appropriate than ever this year of 2020 hindsight.
As of right now we have only one thing planned for December, and that is pretty much the same thing everyone in the world is doing, which is to hunker down and shelter-in-place to avoid getting COVID. I was talking to my friend Frank today and he said he too was planning to lay low because he did not want to be the last soldier shot and killed in the war. That is an interesting sentiment. Getting killed in a war is pretty bad and I’m not so sure that getting killed first, in the middle or at the end is any better or worse than the other. What Frank was expressing is that COVID fatigue makes no sense because putting up with the rigors of social distancing for months and months could all be for naught if you let down your guard for any moment, including and perhaps especially during the last moments before salvation. I guess that means that the world is expecting the vaccines… Pfizer, Moderna, Astra-Zeneca…to bail us out of the COVID pandemic and deliver us from evil. The messenger RNA that seems to be making all this possible is not something I understand, it involves genetic sequencing, ribosomes and all manner of molecular biology, which is mostly a big mystery to me and most of us. And yet we are all betting our lives that the vaccine that comes from all this advanced microbiological pharma magic will bring us immunity, which is to say salvation from the scourge of the species.
Like all things in modern life, we prefer to take a pill than to do the work of prevention. No one is more wed to that than the man in the high castle that is trying desperately to claim credit for creating the panacea for the very tragedy that felled the beast, or at least highlighted the weaknesses that made it clear that the beast’s time was at an end. As the pandemic numbers soar and the news of hospital capacity numbers bring fears of the virus overwhelming our intricate biomedical system, it has become clear that we have stumbled our way into this unavoidable tragedy, but have been about as stupid as people can be in first denying its existence, then denying its power, then thinking the virus and the science that governs it could be outsmarted by bluster and strength of will, and finally, deciding that those who matter can overcome it and those who don’t matter…don’t matter.
Everything about this reality is so wrong and this month is proving that we have to render unto Caesar, that which belongs to Caesar. That was said originally in Matthew by Christ himself and was followed by the requirement that we also render unto God the things that are God’s. Well, I am not a particularly religious man, but I consider myself at least somewhat spiritual, and it is clear to me that we must do all we can do to respect the power of the natural world and not be driven by that which clearly drives the high castle…money, power and pride, none of which can defeat the virus.
I am lucky that I have an all-consuming project here at my home that can keep me entertained and engaged by sheltering-in-place and repairing my personal natural world in all the ways that I can. Doing for oneself (at least to an extent) has an abiding sense of satisfaction that we can control our world, at least at the margin. I am lucky that we live in an age when telecommunications allows us to stay connected every minute of every day with our loved ones. I venture to say that while we are missing the hugs, we are not missing the times of the lives of those we care about. I actually believe that we are closer and more aware of the value of closeness by virtue of not distracting ourselves with excessive travel, events to take us away from our existence, and, in my particular case, the burdens of overwhelming job obligations. I am unlikely to raise funds for my venture company in the last month of the year (hopefully that will improve at the first of the year). I am unlikely to get any new expert witness cases as we wind down the calendar year, but I have my weekly testimony to remind me that my opinions still hold value. And I have been hired to advise on an interesting project that involves an abundance of kibitzing without inordinate financial machinations (the best of all worlds). So, you see, virus or no, December is shaping up to be nothing but calm and sweet.
The bottom line is that if we can stay calm and carry on for this and perhaps a few more months, between the vaccines and the prospect of herd immunity, the virus might pass over our threshold with no more than a shadow of fear to upset our household. I am less convinced that the panacea will be the vaccine and more certain that the cloistered and distanced quiet existence on the hilltop is what will likely get us by. Once again, the randomness of nature and the value of deference to it prove to be the reality that governs our lives. So, this month is proving to be the linchpin to our future and I am finding it a necessarily Sweet December.