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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.
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