Bob Schwartz

I found the following in my notebook, dated December 8, 2020. It was the early days of the pandemic. A lot has happened since.

As it says, I could see a couple of possibilities. One is that there would be an almost obsessive drive to get back to “normal” and to the way things were or imagined to be. The other is that the situation could be taken as an opportunity to do things, see things, think things differently—better.

The way things were. The way things could be. Extreme situations can be opportunities, if we take them. I constantly quote Tennyson in Ulysses: “’T is not too late to seek a newer world.”

America AC

New world. New age. New nation.

The tragedy of the pandemic in America can’t be overstated. Comparison to past national disasters —the Civil War, the Great Depression —seems appropriate but painful.

Looking at tragedy as opportunity seems a cliche, even if constructive and forward looking.

The natural first response to the pandemic was finding the shortest path back to the way things were before. Then it became clear that certain adaptations might have to be made, at least temporarily. Then it became clear that changes were being forced that might not go away even when the pandemic did.

The years leading up to the pandemic already revealed problems in America. Not necessarily new problems. More likely ones that had been minimized or not given enough attention.

So as we emerge slowly, we have an opportunity that hasn’t presented itself in a long time, maybe ever in our history.

Bob Schwartz, December 8, 2020