I was chatting with a friend today and we stumbled into a conversation about the fact that …
every person we know,
indeed every living person we know,
and all of the living people we don’t know,
any person alive today,
and any child born tomorrow,
is, has been already, or will be
affected in some way by the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.
It’s staggering to think that in a matter of days and weeks, all of the people I know and all of the people I don’t know are experiencing the same thing at the same time.
Think about that for a minute.
It’s incredible. It’s scary. It’s unfathomably sad.
And for the Unites States, at least, it is only just the beginning.
The virus doesn’t care …
where we live,
or what we believe,
or who we love,
or what languages we speak.
The virus doesn’t care if we are democrat or republican; rich or poor.
It doesn't care about our race or ethnicity.
It doesn’t care about walls or borders or egos.
The virus doesn’t care. It has arrived as a frighteningly powerful equalizer.
Yet, it’s also a powerful reminder of something I have always believed:
All of our lives are bound up together, inexorably linked by a shared destiny.
This belief serves as a founding principle for us at
Common Ground
.
Your health, my happiness, his security, her compassion, that guy’s access, this kid’s education, our economy, their revolution …
Those are all illusions. Those pronouns are all lies.
Rugged individualism.
Also a lie
.
Self-made.
An arrogant lie.
Autonomous.
A dangerous lie.
There is no going it alone; no pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
Those are just more lies.
The truth is we need each other.
We depend on each other.
We can’t make it without one another.
Our world has become deeply, profoundly, astonishingly interconnected.
Maybe it always has been.
Maybe it’s just easier to see that now.