Are you really all that different from the person out-of-work for a year?

Are you really immune to suffering for years without progress?

We say we are thankful, but we can’t really mean it in the truest sense, because we can’t really believe what’s needed for that truest sense of thankfulness: our lives could, with a few bad bounces here and there, be astonishingly terrible by comparison … and this alternate path is always lurking.

It’s probably a good thing that comfort and adaptability shield us from constantly pondering these subjects.

to poke a hole in someone’s argument for being hypocritical.

Just remember: this usually isn’t a hole regarding the actual substance of the actual argument.

If only non-hypocrites are allowed to address issues, no issues would ever be addressed.

When heinous acts are alleged of someone we like and claim to know well, the rush to safeguard character is oppressive.

Substantive it is not, though. For the most-favored defense path – the only one that’s remotely accessible – is to forcefully declare, “This behavior is inconsistent with the person I know.” Yea, obviously. Unless you yourself are an awful person who knew of the alleged wrongdoing and did nothing, of course the behavior is inconsistent.

Furthermore, statements of this sort perpetuate the delusion that we can know someone so well that all chance for surprise is reduced to 0%. I get it: you feel obligated to say something and equivocation would be weaponized against the person you care about. But let us not forget that inconsistency, “I don’t know why that happened – that wasn’t me back there,” and hypocrisy are defining, shared traits among all humans.

I didn’t turn the light on. I should have. Or rather, the programming built into any middle-class child like myself reads =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room), “lights on”). But I’m not some robot. No siree. Like anyone, there is malleability within me deeply connected to my openness to change. Easier said than done since programming is très comfortable and forking, even with promises of potential upside, requires considerable kwH.

Fortunately, less individual energy is required in an isolated system if someone else enters and shares the burden, thereby making isolation not the dreaded variety, just the thermodynamic one. In the case of =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room), “lights on”), you made it oh so easy for code rewriting. For you noticed things I’d never before considered. Texture, angle, color, and the fundamental, vital question: Why are you turning on the light right now? New code crafted itself as a result. Naturally, whenever I fork to post-xxxxxxxxx =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room, light amplitude is predicted to be moderate, visibility is seriously compromised in only sunlight, the beam angles are optimal), “minimal number of lights on”, “no lights on”), I think of you.

Much is lost without human contact. While I haven’t really felt this effect (Will I? Could I go years without touch? Decades? Ha), I have come to think extensively about something that’s diminished in quarantine: the ability to be understood. “Being understood” is usually presented in reference to “serious” personal truths. I now wonder if this focus misses something basic and vital.

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as a symptom of the problem … and then proceed to totally miss the problem.

The problem: you are the problem. You being many of our leaders, experts, and institutions that preach with great certainty to capture power without having to bear any real cost when that certainty turns out to be Oops. Something unexpected happened.

We are lucky to even get an apology from these so-called adults who treat us like children with their egregious misstatements, denials of easy-to-see realities, and simplification of complex matters. Better than an apology would be an adjustment in behavior, but instead we get even greater certainty and even more marginalization of dissenting voices.

It’s this problem, OBVIOUSLY, that explains the lack of trust in institutions/leaders/experts, the rise of “alternative facts,” and, yes, the election of Donald Trump.

Senator,

My confusion began with a statement so divorced from reality that I reread it multiple times just to confirm I wasn’t missing something:

“From the start, public-health experts were unanimous in their prescription for combatting the spread of COVID-19: ‘Stay Home.'”

Claiming such a thing is synonymous with Donald Trump’s rightly criticized reality-is-what-I-say-it-is persona. If the experts really were so uniform, correct, and prescient, the continued rise of trust in “outsiders” wouldn’t be possible. I most certainly want our experts and institutions to be esteemed, and that’s why I’m concerned about an ongoing denial that anything is amiss. If problems and errors (like the obfuscation around masks) can’t be honestly addressed, people lose faith and turn to less scrupulous sources.

My other point of confusion registered as you rightly pointed out that companies utilize benefits to attract talent. You called paid leave “good economics,” which of course it is when it’s offered – the employer has determined that the employee’s output matches or exceeds the additional compensation cost. This conclusion assumes that employers make economically rational choices. And under that reasonable assumption, it’s also “good economics” when paid leave is not offered – the employer has determined that the employee’s output falls short of the additional compensation cost. In both scenarios, the employer is profit-maximizing by filling necessary roles without incurring unnecessary costs.

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You and all your self-centeredness suddenly care about everyone else? Really? I don’t believe you.

Compassion is accessible within all of us. That access is easier or harder based on circumstances. Namely, the better off you are doing, the more likely you are to be compassionate and vice versa.

Take the 28-year-old tech worker who’s ultra-concerned about a lack of workplace diversity. You think that concern rises if suddenly she’s without a job? Ha.

Nothing left to prove is usually discussed in the context of accomplishment. I’ve come to find the virtues of this concept is the personal context. As in, my personality has been so thoroughly proven, deviations from it are seen as just that: deviations. Just as the professional experiencing a career bump isn’t viewed as the “bump,” so too is the person who no longer, for whatever the reason, can live up to being himself viewed as being this new, lesser form.

This safe space is only available to those who were so true for so long. The accomplished professional doesn’t actually covet the excuse – he wants to still be performing – and neither does the person who wants to reclaim who he is, but there is still comfort in the leeway.

Unless you think giving money to homeless people actually solves problems beyond the immediate, tipping our “front line” service workers is not some great panacea either.

If you actually think workers are underpaid (hint: they aren’t), tipping only allows employers to further depress wages.

Being guided by the “well, it’s the least I can do” spirit isn’t the worst thing ever, but it does often prevent honest conversation about hard problems.

It’s clear enough that grand, life-changing goals are quite hard to meet. Your resolve begins solidly, but in no time at all, desires intervene and adherence crumbles.

AA attempts to combat this decay with a “one day at a time” ethos. This can work … until the ruse is grasped: you peer ahead and remember days become weeks become months become years and that “one day at a time” is just an alternate expression of a chilling reality where you are asked to change behavior forever.

Forever is never easily reconciled. This is true for both things we like (i.e., love) and don’t (i.e., deprivation). Lent avoids this biggest-of-big asks. You only have to change for 40 days. That’s it. Then, normalcy can resume. Whenever you start to waver, you know relief is around the corner, and that knowledge changes the internal calculation dramatically. Suddenly, you can hold out à la your toughest heroes.

Then day 41 hits and you did it! Ain’t nobody faulting you for some good old-fashioned splurging. For a certain type of person, though, the 40 days have reduced such desires. Why not run it back? Did I even desperately miss that which I thought I couldn’t live without?

So that certain person repeats the process just ’cause. The renditions begin blurring together with one noticeable difference: the compulsion to return to the pre-Lent state diminishes inversely with the number of “Lents” completed. Do this enough and further doesn’t seem forever.