On a recent edition of the Tim Ferris Show, I heard a statement that made a lot of sense to me. Ferris asked his guest Dr Vivek Murthy - formerly the US's top sanitary inspector - what he would do if he were in charge of dealing with COVID-19 nationwide. The answer was relatively simple and obvious. First, total transparency. Second, good storytelling.
What is needed now are strong leaders who educate and encourage people. I particularly like Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York State, at this point. He is doing exactly the right thing. In his "daily briefing" he informs the citizens about what is happening and why which decisions are being taken. In this way, he is gaining the support of the people.
On 10 March, in his article "Why you must act now", Tomas Pueyo predicted the developments that are currently unfolding before our eyes. In his second article, "The hammer and the dance", Pueyo describes a scenario that I consider realistic. After a few weeks of lockdown and massive testing of the population, we will probably slowly return to normal over the next one to two years.
As Dr Hemmerich makes clear in a didactically valuable way in this excellent video, it is the principle of the viral itself that needs to be understood. Of course we have to take action. However, it is much more important that we understand what "The Viral" itself is and in what way we can counter it WITHIN US. For the SARS-COV2 pathogen, it makes sense to take hygienic measures. The same applies to the soul-viral in us.
Müsset im Naturbetrachten
Immer eins wie alles achten;
Nichts ist drinnen, nichts ist draußen:
Denn was innen, das ist außen.
So ergreifet ohne Säumnis
Heilig öffentlich Geheimnis.
Freuet euch des wahren Scheins,
Euch des ernsten Spieles:
Kein Lebendiges ist ein Eins,
Immer ist's ein Vieles.
(J.W.GOETHE)
What Goethe expresses with these lines is that we cannot consider anything in the world separately if we really want to do it justice. We know from physics - experimentally confirmed for decades and recently confirmed again - that we as observers literally help "decide" reality. We are accustomed to acting as if reality simply exists and as if it is only passively mapped by us.
Each of us has the power to decide whether to be passively sprinkled, to simply deny what is happening, or to take some action that puts us in touch with it all. We know from psychoneuroimmunology that we can hugely influence the fitness of our immune system depending on whether we feel like victims in survival mode, or whether we actively shape our existence and engage in the context that makes us as living beings.
What we are experiencing right now on a global scale is acute stress. Acute stress, also known in research as "cannon stress" or "fight-or-flight stress" is not in itself a bad thing. On the contrary, it could also be seen as "Eu-stress", i.e. as something positive that gets us going and makes us feel wonderfully alive. The crucial question is how we deal with this acute stress.
If the stress becomes chronic, we no longer speak of "Cannon-" but of "Selye-Stress" or "Dis-Stress", which undermines our immune system and hollows us out energetically in the long run. If, on the other hand, we get a grip on the situation, we regain our composure after the stress and recover. Then we learn and grow through the challenge. We cannot always influence the events. But the way we react to them, what we make of these events for personal experiences within us, that is up to us.
In this spirit, I wish YOU ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((good health and much strength))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) in a moving time.
