Wicked Minds - Issue #13
This is one of those weeks when reality outstrips my capacity to reflect.
The second wave of the pandemic is raging through India. Everyone I know has been affected - either they or someone very close to them has the disease and in many cases, hospitalized or worse.
We don't have the systems to deal with such a crisis and
We are infected by mass magical thinking.
Wicked Virtues
The collapse of our health care system prompted me to think about the kind of character traits that help address wicked problems. One trait stands out: humility. Humility not in the sense of being mild or meek or deferential, but rather the confidence to accept uncertainty, that decisiveness and certitude and declarations of victory are liabilities when every day can be different from the previous one.
Instead, we are obsessed with past glory (where? who's?), inventing new adversaries and projecting the greatest confidence in one's strength and the weaknesses of one's enemies. It's a poisonous atmosphere if you ask me, and the opposite of what's needed now or in the future.
How do we show solidarity in these trying times?
Stay safe and stay sane.
Explained: Magical thinking won’t help us fight Covid-19, masks and social distancing will | Explained News,The Indian Express — indianexpress.com The years of post-mortem that follow will dissect how we arrived here. But for now, the path out of the current inferno requires unwavering commitment to science, and perhaps tremendous rectitude. Let us examine what we can do in the coming months.
‘The system has collapsed’: India’s descent into Covid hell | India | The Guardian Many falsely believed that the country had defeated Covid. Now hospitals are running out of oxygen and bodies are stacking up in morgues