Interesting side note: Several people posted this week, "What good is your electric vehicle now?" It's a petty post that made a few folks feel snarkily superior for a few minutes. Until they realized that gasoline vehicles are of little use when gas stations are out of both power and gas. And when trees are blocking roads. Etc. etc. The reality is that our vulnerability frightens us, and the things to which we cling to avert it are often temporary. What we CAN cling to is the sense of community and purpose that brings out the worst in some--but the best in most--at times like this.
The people of Western North Carolina, and areas nearby, find themselves without major infrastructure that they have relied on without giving it a thought. Roads, electricity, entertainment, food, water, the shelter of homes they may have lived in for decades, and communications. Medical facilities. A hundred years ago many of these now-missing parts of life were not necessities. And as Tom Legrand notes above in his post, “our vulnerability frightens us.” We now have conveniences that are almost essential. My own parents were born in the 1920s, in West Tennessee farmhouses with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The pace of change in the last century has been bewildering. We’ve been given more tools for ease of living and prosperity, but we may now be faced with more challenges than we yet know. We may find ourselves in need of making social adjustments, being the kind of neighbors that Aaron Simmons celebrated in his post. In any case, we may have to learn a new level of acceptance of the world and its changes. We have been a remarkably adaptable species, and we will, I think, continue to adapt. And I hope we can learn again that we genuinely need each other.
such an important reminder about the value of flexibility, adaptability, and transformation. Thank you, Paul! for what it is worth, my wife and son struggled greatly this past week because they didn't have cell signal and internet. I am still processing it, but genuinely think we have to find ways to be more disconnected, as it were, in order to lean harder and more meaningfully into human connection.
Interesting side note: Several people posted this week, "What good is your electric vehicle now?" It's a petty post that made a few folks feel snarkily superior for a few minutes. Until they realized that gasoline vehicles are of little use when gas stations are out of both power and gas. And when trees are blocking roads. Etc. etc. The reality is that our vulnerability frightens us, and the things to which we cling to avert it are often temporary. What we CAN cling to is the sense of community and purpose that brings out the worst in some--but the best in most--at times like this.
Excellent insights, putting recent events in real perspective. Thanks os much.
Thanks, Jack.
The people of Western North Carolina, and areas nearby, find themselves without major infrastructure that they have relied on without giving it a thought. Roads, electricity, entertainment, food, water, the shelter of homes they may have lived in for decades, and communications. Medical facilities. A hundred years ago many of these now-missing parts of life were not necessities. And as Tom Legrand notes above in his post, “our vulnerability frightens us.” We now have conveniences that are almost essential. My own parents were born in the 1920s, in West Tennessee farmhouses with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The pace of change in the last century has been bewildering. We’ve been given more tools for ease of living and prosperity, but we may now be faced with more challenges than we yet know. We may find ourselves in need of making social adjustments, being the kind of neighbors that Aaron Simmons celebrated in his post. In any case, we may have to learn a new level of acceptance of the world and its changes. We have been a remarkably adaptable species, and we will, I think, continue to adapt. And I hope we can learn again that we genuinely need each other.
such an important reminder about the value of flexibility, adaptability, and transformation. Thank you, Paul! for what it is worth, my wife and son struggled greatly this past week because they didn't have cell signal and internet. I am still processing it, but genuinely think we have to find ways to be more disconnected, as it were, in order to lean harder and more meaningfully into human connection.
Sometimes we need to hear from someone who had a piano (or in your case, a piano bench) fall on their heads. Thank you Aaron.