Only in Whispers

(The following is a new, edited version of an essay from five years ago, just as the restrictions of the Covid pandemic were lifted.)

If we’ve entered a new reality, as per today’s top link from the Times*, I for one welcome it. Yes the coronavirus is horrible, the political/economic/culture wars are dispiriting, and all of it fades into insignificance as we stare global climate change in the face.

I accept all that. But we’ve been long overdue to make fundamental changes in the way we live anyway and maybe now is our chance. It’s time to take that less-traveled path in the woods and see where it leads.

Forests are one of the best places to think and feel. Trees communicate with each other through their roots, which connect far below the surface. They seek each other out, offer comfort and warn of danger.

When you’re in a forest, the trees may talk to you, but only in whispers.

The same is true of other wild places. I’ve hiked beaches all over the world and the more remote the beach the more it has to say. Every beach is connected to some distant shore by the tides that wash back and forth, carrying gifts in the form of driftwood, stones, shells, seaglass and the occasional message in a bottle from one land mass to another.

If all of this sounds silly, consider your dreams. We classify them into good ones and nightmares, but they persist either way and there’s no real escaping from them. Even waking up doesn’t help.

But we also have our rational side, that wonderful ability to apply logic and collect evidence before we make decisions. Most of us try to make sense of what we do, if only so we can explain it to each another.

There are all sorts of economic theories suggesting that the sum of many irrational choices by individuals add up to a collective rationality. I may not be getting that exactly right but isn’t that partly how economists explain the movements of the futures markets?

Quantum physics takes all of this out to the furthest place we’ve been able to venture intellectually, where time, space and consciousness all become moot. Starting with Einstein, physicists have been either getting clearer or cloudier as time passes. Take your pick.

Somewhere beyond the rational is the instinctive, where we know what we can trust when we hear it from the trees or the ocean or our dreams -- or our hearts. They propel us forward to explore.

This may be the path to a future where everything changes. We may be living with wave after wave of pandemics, natural disasters, and other disruptions. Our first instinct may be to huddle down in place, become more conservative, seek what is safe and familiar.

Or we may venture out, try to embrace the unknown and learn from it.

Everyone alive now is engaged in this struggle whether we acknowledge it or not. We have a will to survive but at times we get overwhelmed and want to give up. 

Don’t give up. The best part is yet to come.

* What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run? -- The year 2020 gave us a glimpse of something radically new: tensions in politics, finance and geopolitics intersecting with a natural shock on a global scale. (Adam Tooze/NYT)

HEADLINES:

• 37 Killed After Russian Strike on Weapons Depot as Ukraine Blames Negligence (NYT)

• Missing toll from devastating floods in Nepal and China passes 3,000 (CNN)

• Trump Says U.S. To Take Control of Big Portion of Venezuelan Oil (NYT)

• US Treasury imposes limits on Egyptian bank for doing business with Iran (FT)

• Fired Stars and Stripes staffers sue Pentagon, Hegseth (USAToday)

• The Sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln Deserve Better (Atlantic)

• Putin sees U.S. as weakened by Iran war, intelligence reports say (WP)

• Six months on, the Iran war has changed the Middle East, but not in the way its architects had hoped (AP)

• Milo Yiannopoulos, a Right-Wing Provocateur, Is Arrested by ICE (NYT)

• ‘If it’s made in the US, I don’t buy it’: Canadians on boycotting Trump’s America (Guardian)

• The Canadian Menace (NR)

• Trump’s ‘Lake America’ move revives one of his biggest political flops (CNN)

• Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo spreads to 2 new health zones with a total of 60 areas now affected (AP)

• Trump Administration Proposal Would Give Part of Yosemite to a Developer (NYT)

• The Right Is Rediscovering the Fourth Amendment (Newsweek)

• Judge Throws Out Key 9/11 Confession as Tainted by Torture (NYT)

• U.S. economy created fewer new jobs in 2025-2026, it turns out. Just how bad was it? (MarketWatch)

• Fed Chair Warsh Seeks to Calm Concerns About Fed’s Grip on Elevated Inflation (NYT)

• Warsh signals rate hikes may be needed with US inflation stubbornly elevated (AP)

• The under-the-radar solution to America’s expensive ticket crisis (BI)

• In Trump’s Washington, Ballooning National Debt Stirs Little Action (NYT)

• Kacey Musgraves, Crossover Queen (New Yorker)

• Social media giants could face even stiffer penalties under California bill (Politico)

• ICE is arresting soaring numbers of immigrants with no criminal record (WP)

• ICE plans to buy robot ‘dogs’ for some immigration enforcement operations (NBC)

• S.F.’s AI boom is fueling a new wave of eviction fears (SFC)

• OpenAI and Anthropic are ruining San Francisco (SFGate)

• A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic, the latest turn in the Claude maker’s high-stakes fight with the military over AI safety on the ‌battlefield. (Reuters)

• As A.I. Money Floods the Market, San Francisco Renters Weigh Buyouts (NYT)

• New AI startup with ‘extreme’ work culture takes over S.F. office abandoned by Cruise (SFC)

• HHS Replaces Childhood Vaccination Schedule With List Of Recommended Animal Bites (Onion)