The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Although it may feel like it, this is probably not the beginning of the apocalypse. What it should be, however, is a wake-up call.

Every time there's a crisis we get the same set of stories: The kind-hearted souls on the front lines /giving generously / making sacrifices to help others; the disbelievers and conspiracy theorists; and the people who callously take advantage of others' misfortune.

But this is different. Some have likened the COVID-19 pandemic to a war. But no one alive today has fought a war on U.S. soil. Most of us don't know about sheltering in place and rationing appropriately. And we don't do marshal law and social restrictions.

Image from knowledge.insead.edu

It's what makes us the dream to achieve, and the real-world nightmare we are right now.

Our country has certainly taken its image hits. With so much Americanism infiltrating the globe it only makes sense there's schadenfreude when we slip and fall.

But do we have to be so...American about all this?

My chief point of contention is the US v. THEM mentality:

• Trump's characterization of this as a "foreign" or "Chinese" virus, like it has citizenship and a passport. 
• The "I'll get mine and everyone else can fend for themselves" hoarding mentality at our already-overstocked grocery and warehouse stores. 
• Here on Maui, the online comments following every article about the spread of the virus: the only cases are from travelers, ban everyone from coming to the islands.
• The abhorrent "Boomer remover" mentality. Other nations are much more respectful to their elders, and rightly so. Some day, young Americans, you, too, will be old. (Unless, of course, you insist on partying during a pandemic and contract, say, a potentially lethal virus.)

I'm not here to offer a solution. In reality, I don't think there is anything to be "fixed." Some of these traits are inherent to humans no matter where they are. Yet we are who we are--love us or hate us--because we live in a country that speaks up and acts and has the freedom to do so loudly and often.

But we can be better. We can use our power for better.

Some are. Like I said, there are plenty of heartwarming stories about people just being people. There are stores setting aside hours for the age group most vulnerable to this virus to shop in relative safety, with fewer people around. There are folks in my neighborhood volunteering to run errands for others or just talk to them so they're not alone in their isolation.

That's humans, in a nutshell. We are the good. We are the bad. We are the ugly.

This is the latest pandemic, but it won't be the last. This virus doesn't care about borders. It has us shutting in and shutting down and shutting out, but that won't stop climate change water rise and future adaptive illnesses.

One day we'll open the doors to look for help and find ourselves alone.

Now is our chance to band together in our isolation. We may not be giving balcony concerts like the Italians, but we have other ways to give back and bond with each other. We have the choice to be a distributed community instead of colonies of soloists.

The alternative? After the next few pandemics or disasters or global events, or the next, we humans will end up as a footnote.

It Ain't Over Till...

Well, it's official. We've been sitting on a bubble for the past few weeks and this week it finally got popped.

The funding for the startup that brought us here has been cut.

What we found out weeks ago was that the work would be canceled, but whether that happened with the then-current milestone or the next milestone was TBD. Now it has been determined to be the present milestone, which means the team's work stops at the end of this month.

Obviously, with the axe hovering, Larry had already started the hunt for the next interesting thing. Given the instability of the video game industry, he's also looking at engineering and testing roles in other areas.

And speaking of "other areas," we moved to Maui knowing there was a severe shortage of appropriate roles for either of us here.

In fact, for Larry this was it. And outside of a couple of contract jobs working at home, I've had no luck finding a job locally in content/copywriting that didn't involve a resort.  (No, thank you.)

So, moving on to another position for Larry will also mean MOVING ON.

I'm a tiny pot of big emotions about the whole thing. This will certainly be my shortest tenure in a place since college--I don't even know if I'll hit the year mark on Maui. (As I write this, 54 days and counting to get there.)

We've also agreed that most, if not all of our stuff will go away (depending on where we move next). Logically/financially, that makes sense. Emotionally, that's 20+ years of nesting to get rid of. (And get over. Given that I wrote about it in this blog and my Hamburg blog, no simple task.)

While I refine lists and we process options and get ready for the stress and the last-minute rush that always comes with these transitions, this is my roundabout heads-up that this blog will be coming to an end sooner rather than later.

Like everything else, the timing is uncertain. We'll see what the next few weeks hold in store...