Observe, Observe Perpetually - Lessons From Coronavirus

Following Michele de Montaigne's mantra of "observe, observe perpetually" in this eternal-impermanent world has been my obligation as a human being. It's much easy to identify lessons from hindsight wisdom and it's impossible to predict the future. But yet, being in the present and observing the present one can evaluate the old wisdom passed down for generations and on rare occasions, discover rare new wisdom hidden in the debris.

Rahm Emanuel (no one holds a patent to be wise; wisdom is in everyone's reach) once said:

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

This is an attempt to make sense of current events and the lessons can we learn from this. As of this moment, lots of old wisdom have been proved right and I am going to list them as well but at the same time, identify any new lessons that we can learn.

It is also an attempt to do beyond my biases, "boring" old traits for leading a good life, ancient wisdom, and try to pluck out "natural generalized knowledge" (commonly known as wisdom). There is no guarantee that I would be able to find anything new that hasn't been already told million times and in that case, this would act as a humble repeater of timeless wisdom distilled down for generations.

I will avoid tautological questions like - What is wrong with these people?

I am the least eligible person to jot down these since eerie as it is going to sound, the current way of life all the people in the world live is what Max and I used to live for 13 plus years...

• Stopped traveling for "pleasure" (very rare occasions traveled for work) since Max cannot go with me
• Avoided restaurants and usually did take out since it allowed me to have a meal with Max by my side
• No exotic places, pleasure means since walk with Max and rest of the time being at home with Max reading or watching a movie. 
• Working remote was the most pleasurable thing since I can be with Max more
• Time is more essential than money and being with Max made that second nature 

I can list down so many other things that are the new way of life for everyone in the world because of the lockdown while that was our way of life for 13 years. In this idiosyncrasy, we did find a way to live a simple life. A simple and ordinary life where time and thoughts were spared only on what mattered most. Many looked at us like nutcases for this way of life and now, eerie as it sounds... the entire world is living this way. 

What are the odds of this happening within 100 days of Max passing away?  If Max was alive now it would have close to impossible to get his regular treatment without his vet's constantly reminding me over the phone to put him "down". On the other hand, if Max was alive, he would have had me this entire year next to him 24x7. Maybe he would have gotten better. As Taleb says, there is no alternate history. 

I should be feeling vindicated but I don't. The way we lived is idiosyncratic and conscious of the fact that how little time we have together. I never once wanted the whole world to live exactly like we did. I am grateful that I could afford to lead a life where I was able to spare more time with Max but most of the people in the world don't have that luxury.

Cancer took my Max away but I do feel cancer is a great equalizer. Observing how humans behaved in the past few months under Coronavirus makes me wonder cancer is an evolutionary way of keeping precious life on earth safe. Even if we cure cancer, maybe a different deadly disease would evolve to maintain the balance in entropy. 

I will update this post as time unfolds with the lessons learned, lessons unlearned, and lessons updated - in the spirit of Montaigne's way of updating one's thoughts with time.

It is for this reason that experience of real life, appreciating one’s place in history, was such a wellspring for Hirschman, as it was for his inspiration, Montaigne, whose last essay was “On Experience.” Life, as Montaigne reminds us, is “a purpose unto itself.” The excursions into real life— as struggler against European fascisms, soldier in the US Army, deep insider of the Marshall Plan, advisor to investors in Colombia, and consultant to global foundations and bankers— were never digressions for Hirschman; they were built into the purpose of observing the world to derive greater insight, and from insights invent concepts that could in turn be tested, molded, refashioned, and even discarded by the course of time. These were the pendular swings from a contemplative life to a life of action and back again— pendular because they were codependent.

If biography is the art of the singular to illuminate a pattern, Hirschman’s odyssey can be read as a journey with no particular end, the life of an idealist with no utopia because he believed that the voyage of life itself yielded enough lessons to change who we are and what we aspire to be; to require and stay on course toward an abstract destination threatened to deprive the journey of its richest possibilities.

- Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman

Lesson 1:

Modernity has replaced wisdom with "self-serving" mental models. This is the reason why books such as  Poor Charlie's Alamanac and Black Swan sold more copies than Will Duhart's Lessons of History and Antifragile. 

Don't get me wrong, I did learn a lot from those books but they are guides to navigating human nature and become successful (via money, fame, etc.,) without societal change and covers nothing about morality nor doing the right thing. 

Reading has become a rare commodity and people who are readers are supposed to enrich their knowledge,  incorporate the learnings in doing the right thing in their everyday life. These readers are supposed to guide their immediate inner circle for starters towards making the right decisions and doing the right actions and instill a sense of responsibility beyond themselves. 

Unfortunately, reading and knowledge have become only a "how-to-guide" to success, fame, money, and happiness in whatever order it is convenient. they use it now mostly to serve themselves. Nothing wrong with serving oneself. Sharing intimate knowledge with the inner circle helps shape core values, virtues, and principles of life. These readers are high influence nodes in a network. 

We as a civilization have to pay massive costs if we lose these virtue networks. 

On the surface, it seems harmless but this pandemic has bought to surface this disease (the symptoms were lurking for decades). 

As long as one has the money, job, gun, food, alcohol, a constant flow of entertainment, etc.,  they "feel safe" from even a biological entity that has the potential to wipe out species. 

Even after almost a year of the world being shut down, our generation is still more worried about restaurants being closed than understand how precariousness and preciousness of our food supply. 

We continue to waste a tremendous amount of food every day since there is no moral reprimand from the virtue networks since they barely exist. 

To state the obvious, if my examples are wonderful books and it not worth even worth mentioning what religious and ideological writings can do virtue networks. 

Lesson 2: (Coming Soon)