One of curious effects of this pandemic has been a profound feeling of coming home, for me. This crisis is just one of a series of nesting crises that define my lifespan. There’s a pandemic, which takes place during the Trump administration, which is a symptom of the larger crisis of the age of misinformation that threatens democracy, which comes along just at the right time to complicate our response to the climate crisis, which will have a million sub-crises that compound each other and threaten state failure. And there are other, lower key crises that don’t occupy much of my attention but that I wouldn’t actually bet money against either, like AI going nuts or accidentally toxifying our bodies or whatnot.
So this moment, for me, feels like a small release. Ah, the world in turmoil, as it should be. Normal, when it comes in 2022 or whatever, is a kind of segue — a brief interlude tempting the suspension of our disbelief.