ADAPTATIONS upon ADAPTATIONS
… keeping our footing on slippery terrain
Walking early in the dark gets tricky, as it was yesterday when temperatures hover near freezing and the drizzle might freeze …
Keeping our footing on slippery terrain, walking in shadows in darkness — adds starkness to a reality most never face.
Imagine for a moment doing everything you do without hearing a sound and/or living without sight. We could learn to cope, but initially, we would be without that capability. We would flail and fail.
But in time, it could be taught — we could learn to thrive and be as much alive to fulfill our aspirations.
That’s not a vague reference to Helen Keller-esque stories, simply a fact of adaptation.
Three years ago, the terms pandemic, N95 mask, case-fatality ratio, vaccination passports, and contact tracing were not in our vocabulary. We all know every big hospital has a small number of well-equipped and staffed rooms for the very sickest patients. We’ve adapted our language and our sensitivity to many issues. Some resist, find an unreasonable side of an untenable argument and ask that we all reverse our adaptations and actions, so they don’t have to change.
Perhaps the protesters arguing against vaccinations generally or against the rights of employers and the public to know they are safe are correct, but science overwhelmingly says they are wrong. I think they are flailing in the dark and not hearing balanced views.
Adapting is difficult. Drawing lines in the sand is easy, but crossing those lines is emotionally tricky because it admits (or appears to) surrender to someone else’s views or control, admits wrong-thinking or wrongdoing, admits the greater good of greater numbers (the many) is more critical than the peculiar rights of (the one), that person in that situation.
When the arguments of whether the world as we know it is ending, the rights of women to control their bodies and countries’ rights to wage peace, it strikes this old dog this is an unresolvable issue without a perfect or ideal solution. Yet, history proves the many can be wrong as quickly and simply as the few — the directions are most often determined by who has the power, the money, and the fortitude to make it happen their way.
That has nothing to do with right or wrong …
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