nausea and awe
Right now, my genetic machinery is being hacked to create a fertile training ground for my immune system. I’m writing on my phone in the waiting room, minutes after receiving my first dose of vaccine for COVID-19. I knew this was going to be an emotional moment after a very tough year, but now that I’m here, it’s not the emotion I expected. There’s a lot more awe than relief.
Feels like a billion words have been written about the pandemic. Some of the most important are about how this virus has exacerbated injustice in our society. The cracks and seams that line our delicate civilization are being stressed and expanded. Yet at the same time, this coronavirus has revealed just how much we care about each other, too. I hope we can learn from this and line those cracks with gold.
In the first few months of confusion a year ago, I was jealous of humanity’s collectivist cultures locking down with great discipline. I remember marvelling at the low case numbers on the other side of the planet as cases spiked here in the west. I remember reflecting on the flaws of individualism.
Yet here I am now, in awe of what our most individualist societies have accomplished. There are problems and inequalities with rollout to be sure, but still, we’ve married our survival instincts, our compassion, and our economic incentives into a groundbreaking biological solution on an unprecedented timeline.
As that very solution makes its way through my cardiovascular system, I reflect on how easy it was to celebrate collectivism a year ago, and how easy it is for me to celebrate individualism now. What’s most beautiful to me in this moment is how both types of culture have played important roles in containing this thing. We don’t have to take a side. In fact, this is one of those fleeting common-enemy moments where we might realize we’re all on the same side.
We’re so quick to draw binaries, but the world is more complex and subtle than our snap judgments. A personal example: Last month, my family and I spent some time in nature. As we ventured into the woods, my wife got frustratingly anxious about ticks and Lyme disease. I remember rolling my eyes. My parents did, too. Let’s just enjoy our time among the trees, right?
Then she spotted a tick on our son’s neck from several meters away. Eagle eyes! I was paralyzed as she became Supermom, calmly pulling out the tick removal kit she had ordered a week ago and carefully removing the little bug. Then she bagged the tick in case we needed to test it, sterilized the bite mark, and asked me to pull up a chart to classify its body type. She set an appointment with the paediatrician for a consult and we reported the case the local health authority.
I know how to relax and enjoy life even when facing uncertainty, so it’s easy for me to accuse my wife of worrying too much. Sure, she can get a little tense, but this tendency also helps her be incredibly resourceful and well-prepared when things do go awry. In my best moments, I remember that neither way of being is right or wrong. We work well together because we’re different. Somehow in the healthy tension between extremes, the pendulum swings back when it needs to, and we find our next foothold.
In this moment of vaccination, I feel a bit nauseous, but I also see how our plurality actualizes our potential. The anxious parts of us that want to sterilize every grocery, the altruist parts of us that want to sacrifice for the greater good, the intrepid parts of us that throw caution to the wind, and the innovative parts of us that investigate problems and devise solutions. They’re all important ingredients to our individual and collective future.