​

You know the old joke—I think it was an original by Bob Newhart—about putting an indefinite number of monkeys in a room with an indefinite number of typewriters (For you young’uns, that’s a mechanical device that worked much like a computer keyboard, but made more noise and printed directly on paper with piano-like hammers with raised letters), anyway, as I was saying, if those monkeys were given the freedom to type whatever their fingers—less the thumbs, of course, because they aren’t opposable—that eventually, meaning about the time it will take for the universe to expand to nothingness, those critters will reproduce every great literary work. In Bob Newhart’s version, the guy in the white lab coat with a clipboard, says something like, “Wait! I think we have something here. This one typed 'To be or not to be; that is the gazorninplatz'" (I’m winging the memory part here).
 
So, anyway, the point is that with an indefinite number of monkeys with the same number of typewriters—okay, keyboards and Word—you would get the great literary works and probably a bunch of writing that either made no sense or that made only partial sense. Anyway, again, that’s how I feel about the indefinite number of reporters given an indefinite number of keyboards or an equal number of microphones writing or talking about the 2020 pandemic. Is there any aspect of this pandemic that hasn’t been covered ad infinitum? And what is the latest reporting done under the prospect that finding a cure might be very difficult? It’s about the “herd immunity.”
 
I don’t know about you, but I would find little comfort in the herd immunity because the herd is never the individual. One of those monkeys is going to type “gozorninplatz.” Many of them won’t even come that close. Much of the herd can fail, leaving only a few to continue typing either nonsense or partial stories.
 
But maybe I shouldn’t fault them, the reporters, that is. Each day they get bombarded with sickness and death statistics, some of which are questionable, others of which are a day behind the current realities, and some of which might be fudged to help an agenda, like hospital funding. Certainly, it’s well known by now and through all the reporting that the CDC wants “Covid” on part one of death cause, and only on part two does it want other contributing factors like heart problems, COPD, or diabetes. That puts current death data in question.  
 
So, desperate either for a story or for a sign of hope, reporters talk about “herd immunity” as though that in itself will save individuals. Or they talk about it because every other aspect of the pandemic has been covered by their indefinite number of competing reporters. Possibly, “herd immunity” is the bright spot in the eyes of those who are being worn down by the daily dealings of death data.
 
I’m wondering whether or not there isn’t another kind of herding. One that puts a single mindset in the brains of the human herd. The pandemic is wearing people down. It has crushed the world’s economies. Many went from prosperous to desperate in a matter of weeks. For example, with the closure of restaurants came a decrease in demand for products like pork, a decrease that, when coupled with ailing meat packers, shut down about 25% of the demand and, thus, the supply. Under the continuous bad news, many people look for some sign of hope.
 
Individuals—you?—might now be thinking in a herd mentality that the economy will open again and that the disease will fade to the significance of a yearly flu. But that’s a desperate thought, sad to say, at least for the short term (a year? 18 months?). Is there a herd immunity against the flu? Is that helpful? Remember that the flu leads to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and hospital visits annually. Is it better to have something like the flu, which, according the CDC results in an annual death toll between 12,000 and 61,000 in the USA? Let me give you other numbers from the CDC. Some 9 million to 45 million illnesses and between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations can be attributed to influenza. And that’s with the so-called herd immunity. So, those 12,000 to 61,000 people who died from the flu found no solace in being part of the herd.
 
And guess what? Herd immunity is not something we do consciously. It happens, or it doesn’t happen. It’s not like making an antiviral medicine or some vaccine. No one has control over herd immunity. It’s not a beacon of hope, not a great work wrought by a great mind. It’s a bunch of monkeys running helter-skelter and either unknowingly becoming immune or not and the same bunch trying to type explanations that appease even when they don’t make much sense. There’s no conscious typing of a coherent story, however. The tale of herd immunity, for example, is merely a hope based on random words that might, like “gazorninplatzes,” indicate that such immunity is essentially a meaningless chance event.
 
Yet, you will hear some say or write “We just need to wait to see whether or not we get herd immunity.” 

If you have snorkeled or scuba-dived over and through a coral reef, you have seen the myriad coral polyps that look like little anemones encased in hard, calcium-carbonate homes in crowded neighborhoods of their own construction. Corals of hundreds of species combine their “exoskeletal” homes to make reefs of “colonies” that can stretch not just for miles, but, as in the instance of the Great Barrier Reef, along the entire coast of a continent. These brainless creatures, belonging to the Phylum Cnidarians (Yeah, cn), do something on the individual species level that many people find quite remarkable: They spawn at the same time. Yes, brainless creatures cooperate for the good of the species. Such spawning has been documented repeatedly.*
 
How coral polyps know to spawn simultaneously is largely a mystery, and maybe “knowing” is the improper process. But in human terms, these brainless critters “know.” Obviously, one might conjecture, the spawning is just a matter of biochemistry. I can accept that because in my own ignorance of how the world works, I see each spring the budding of trees and flowering of cherry, pear, and apple trees, all those branches seeming to say, “Okay, let’s do this.”
 
The more germane point in the midst of a pandemic is this: Brainless corals cooperate for the good of the species. The relevant question then follows: How is it that humans with brains can’t uniformly cooperate for the good of the species?
 
You can ask that question with respect to a society as a whole or to a social segment. Of course, you can also ask it about an individual.
 
Now the obvious answer is that brains aren’t relegated to simple biochemical reactions to the environment. Brains spawn meaning in every human “polyp.” Cooperation in most matters is optional. Criminal perpetrators, for example, don’t cooperate for the good of society at large in “normal” times. Some, the murderers and especially the mass murderers, harm the colony. Even under a threat like war or famine, criminal brains choose disruption over cooperation. Where some in the colony would spawn good, they spawn evil.
 
Evolution has given the simple coral the ability to act for the good of the colony while still remaining an individual polyp. In the realm of phyla with brains, evolution has maintained some semblance of the coral cooperation for the good of the group: Fish schooling, for example. Even more complex brains reveal both predators and prey cooperating, the former working to bring down the latter in the actions of, say, lions and wolves, and the latter working to save the group as a whole in the herding of wildebeest or in the water buffalo chasing off lions that attack one of their members. And then we get to the mystery of the big brains, those that we find in humans who, for whatever “reason,” cannot cooperate for the good of the species: The madmen who would release weapons of mass destruction on a population, for example.
 
Watch as the world endures a biochemical threat to humanity. Will organisms with brains cooperate? Can humans learn a simple lesson from a simple coral?
 
 
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CleWRmrpkJE

Of many things we wanted most
Were other suns that served as host
To planets like our own, with life,
And maybe one without our strife.
 
And then not far away we saw
An exoplanet; we said, “Ah!”
Its star was bright as it could be
Its name we called, “Fom al’ haut b.”
 
We thought we’d found another place
For creatures like the human race.
And not too far away it lies
Just close enough for Hubble’s eyes.
 
But then, it changed from bright to blur,*
We had no choice but to infer,
That what we saw no longer is,
What once was hard is dusty fizz.
 
Our guess is now, the planet’s dead,
Hit by what we here now so dread,
Another body slammed it hard
So, broken, b is just a shard.
 
"It’s dust right now," observers say,
"Collision turned it to puree."
A fate that once produced our moon
Destroyed Fom al’ haut all too soon.
 
We’ll miss you now, the planet b,
You gave us hope someday we’d see
And meet a peaceful race of friends.
But now in dusty shards that ends.
 
Whatever happens here, it seems,
The strife, the sadness, broken dreams,
Is universal in its scope.
And so some say they’ve lost all hope.
 
But many suns around us glow
And closer still are those we know,
The members of the human race
With whom we share this tiny space.
 
Why look afar for things right here,
For life that lives upon our sphere?
No exoplanet we can find
Can ever match the human mind.

Why wait to meet some creatures distant
When friends are here within an instant?
Now turn away from things afar
And look to living where you are. 


 
*SciNews. Fomalhaut b Doesn’t Exist, Astronomers Say. 21 Apr 2020. Online at http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/fomalhaut-b-planetesimal-collision-08347.html     Accessed April 21, 2020

Quick survey, two questions: Have you found joy? Have you made joy?
 
In Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile, a stream of consciousness novella, the narrator says on his deathbed, “One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences...I am responsible in every way.” Existential stuff, that.
 
But not a sign of the times, that is, these times when people look to blame, times when people look for scapegoats, times when victimhood has been raised to the level of an art. Pervasive irresponsibility, or lack of responsibility. By far, these are the least existential times. In victimhood, freedom dies, and personal freedom is the heart of existentialism. Joy, in times of blame, scapegoating, and victimhood, comes from the outside.
 
Yet, maybe even those who spent decades blaming others for this, that, and even for their own lives and who now face the threat death by a virus—yes, those who lie on their potential deathbeds—might, like Bolaño’s narrator, admit they had a personal responsibility. Some probably regret both words and silences, and maybe, too, for actions inimical to others’ wellbeing, words and actions that changed little if anything but that aimed to harm and in doing so, simply raised the mean spirit of elitism, condescension, and hate. And some might regret they did not live a life of joy, consistent joy, if not constant joy; and, maybe shared joy.
 
Remember reading about those existentialist philosophers who proclaimed that humans are free, but who said freedom elicits negative feelings or thoughts about life? One of those thoughts is that life can be dreadful. That it can be boring, also. Angst, Weltschmerz, ennui: All three seem to be the downside of living with personal responsibility during a finite life that is under constant threat. One can run and hide from threats, but then hiding imposes other negative thoughts that arise when contact with others is interrupted. What’s a modern existentialist to do? Certainly, the temporary distractions of modern life don’t erase an underlying ennui because it returns when the distractions are over. And certainly, the sense of confidence that defies anxiety never lasts through a dark and stormy night as winds threaten to destroy even the biggest and strongest of luxury homes. And certainly, the daily grind grinds on until it ends in some form of retirement and seeming irrelevance. All joy seems for the existentialist to be little more than a temporary distraction from life in an indifferent world. Angst, Weltschmerz, and ennui rise to the foreground of thought and feeling during those moments when people are most isolated, as in the dark of night, and, in the midst of a pandemic, in the isolation from social circles and the general public. Miss crowds nowadays? Miss hustle and bustle? Miss the rat race? Asking, “What’s next?”
 
I get the feeling that Sartre, Kierkegaard, and others within and on the periphery of the existentialism movement were not happy campers. Did these guys ever smile? Would they have laughed at the most existential of cartoonists, guys like Gary Larson? Really, had I known Kierkegaard, I might have said. “Soren, lighten up. You can’t wallow. Remember what you said about 1838, that in May that year you found ‘indescribable joy’? And then what, was life an uphill struggle before and after that month? Yes, I know you wrote parody, but wasn’t its purpose the denigration of those with whom you disagreed? Surely, that doesn’t equate to joy.”
 
Surely, even for the most brooding among us, joy can persist over days, months, and even years.
 
You can frame existentialists in another picture. No matter how much thinking one does, he or she can never reach an ultimate explanation of the process of living. Over millennia, thinkers haven’t produced an ultimate philosophy or psychology. I suppose Sartre acknowledged the inadequacy of others’ thinking. Philosophies always undergo some change, if not in contradiction or abandonment, then in subtle refinements that reiterate the thinking du jour in neologisms. And those who refine others’ thinking find themselves eventually questioning or redefining the “meaning of life” spiraling ever smaller into an infinity of mystery. No one seems to have the ultimate answer, not for others, and not ultimately for himself or herself. Of course, on can self-dupe, and possibly all dupe themselves. No one can ever know the final thought of the dying representative of a particular philosophy. Does, one might ask, the atheist really go into nonexistence thinking, “I’m going into nonexistence”? Does the believer die in total belief? Does the bored person die realizing, “Hey, some of that was actually fun”?
 
Little brings out the individual’s essence more than isolation. Questions surface about what to do next. Thoughts stream and then, like water in a fountain, run again through the pump and pipes of the mind. Isolation turns one inward, and once focused inward, turns one into a self-examiner. And in isolation, those inclined to pessimistic perspectives suffer Angst, Weltschmerz, and ennui.
 
Existential philosophies have adherents, but by adhering, by following, adherents give up the freedom existentialists claim as a basis for their thinking. Any negativity, like Angst, born of their philosophies or suffered by adherents, is just one path of understanding. Competing philosophies exist as all philosophies beget sub-philosophies, those refinements of which I wrote above. Even for those who think their philosophy will remain viable throughout life onto their deathbeds, there’s always the chance that another thought might supplant, might replace what seemed at one time a sure bet as the ultimate explanation of life.
 
There’s always that challenge of deciding between two well-known graffiti that appear on posters and T-shirts: “To be is to do” and “To do is to be,” both thoughts attributed to various philosophers, including Plato and Socrates. In isolation like that imposed by a pandemic, pessimists define their existence by the latter; optimists, by the former. True, everyone probably bounces between the two positions, but a dominance of one over the other means the difference between relegating oneself to a life of Angst, Weltschmerz, and ennui and a life that finds joy in its essence. Whereas the ancient Greeks spoke of an innate or inherent, or even an a priori essence, Sartre and kindred philosophers argued that existence precedes essence, that in existing, we define our essence. Joy, in such thinking, has to be made, not found, just as meaning has to be made, not found.

​Where do you stand? Joy from the outside? Joy from the inside? Made joy? Discovered joy? Do you say like Bolaño’s narrator, “I am responsible in every way”?

I assume very few people like to drive through dense fog. Knowing what’s ahead is paramount to safety. That’s why weather forecasters tell us how far we can see during a fog episode. Makes sense.
 
Seeing what’s ahead is limited to the edge of the visibility horizon. Beyond that, which is ever moving as we travel, lies the unknown and possibly the hazardous conditions that jeopardize safety. Fog, however, isn’t the only phenomenon that puts a limit on visibility. In the grand scheme of the universe, there’s also a visibility horizon; it’s out there about 13.8 billion light years away. Over that horizon lies an unknown universe of galaxies whose light hasn’t traversed the intervening space. Astronomers can guess the visible universe has one to two trillion galaxies, but they can’t know what lies over that horizon, and they never will know as the universe continues to expand.
 
We play a rather passive role with respect to seeing those distant galaxies. We have to wait for their light to arrive, and there’s nothing we can do to hasten the arrival. In fact, there’s nothing we can do even in waiting. That train left the station 13.8 billion years ago. It’s not returning. But what about the other visibility horizons in our lives?
 
Forecasters can tell us what to expect on foggy nights, but only those in the fog can report the actual conditions. They lie beyond the visibility horizon; they can call out to warn. Of course, warnings work only when people heed them, the most famous of ignored warnings being the soothsayer’s statement to Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March.” Not too long ago, as Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast as a Category III hurricane with the potential for strengthening, the Governor of Louisiana, the US President, and the Mayor of New Orleans all issued warnings, and three or four Louisiana parishes declared a mandatory evacuation. As the storm approached and strengthened, more parishes adopted the mandatory evacuation, and President Bush invoked the Stafford Act and deployed federal troops and FEMA. At the same time, the Governor issued a mandatory evacuation, and the Mayor of New Orleans echoed that mandate. You know the story. People didn’t leave. More than 1,000 died disregarding those warnings and updated information from the National Hurricane Center whose satellite imagery enabled all who wanted to, to see over the horizon.
 
And now we have another visibility horizon, not a large boundary like the edge of the visible universe nor one like the expansive ocean over which storms travel, but one as tiny as a virus. Yet, as tiny as it is, it shrouds the future. It is the fog through which we cannot presently see. We can hypothesize; we can wildly predict. Seeing past this particular visibility horizon will improve only when the fog of this pandemic dissipates. Some fogs last longer than others, and this one is trying the world’s patience till it lifts.
 
As we know from experience, whereas some drivers slow down when they enter fog, others continue to drive as though nothing obstructs their view. We’ve read about chain-reaction crashes and unnecessary injuries and deaths. Racing headlong into the visibility horizon isn’t prudent and can be dangerous. Slow down. The fog will lift. Visibility will improve, and you will see your future more clearly.

​When the government (or whoever) decided to take incandescent light bulbs off the store shelves, a number of people objected. Fluorescent bulbs effected a pasty look on people, didn’t have the same range of wavelengths as natural sunlight, and were considered an unnecessary pollutant in waste disposal and a danger if broken in the home. The new alternative at the time, LEDs, were expensive, and they, too, gave off an unfamiliar light. People wanted that old warm glow of the incandescent bulbs.
 
Then, LED prices dropped with greater mass production, and with greater competition, they mimicked their predecessor incandescent bulbs in wavelengths, returning that part of the spectrum to the inside world of living rooms and home offices. Warm light. Now, one can buy LEDs that mimic even older-style incandescent bulbs, those with yellowish glows on filaments in bulbs more like upside down jars, some even hanging off wires to give an antique look.
 
And the most recent of LED lighting provides not just color changes to meet or cause moods, but also the look of gas-light or fireplace flames. Yes, we’re back to Abraham Lincoln reading by fireplace and candle and to nineteenth century street lamps flickering light over patches of cobblestone streets. Intriguing, isn’t it? We have advanced into the past in lighting technology.
 
Capturing past lighting in new ways makes me wonder whether or not there are other such “advances.” Sports “retro” uniforms come to mind. Not made from wool, the new blends of fabrics look very much like the old-time baseball or football team jerseys. Car makers have also engineered retro dashboards and interiors for some new models, somehow that retro look capturing the fancy of a class of buyers. And after decades in the mid-twentieth century of homes with central heating, the homes of the seventies and beyond incorporated more “fireplaces,” placed here in quotation marks because many were natural gas, propane, or even electric heaters, and not log-burning. We’re all the way back to pretending that we sit around the cave-dwellers’ open-hearth fires.
 
Is there a need for nostalgia? Is that what drives the antique business? Have you ever gone into a Cracker Barrel or similar restaurant to find a retro look? Obviously, the architects of the style believe the look invites customers. Amidst the clang of dishes and the noise of many conversations, one gets the feeling of eating in an old farmhouse. Restored old houses serve as similar restaurants. And now, we can look for more of those to incorporate LED lights that mimic gas flames.
 
We’ve come full cycle. The modernism of the late 1920s through the 1960s gave way to other styles that in turn sometimes reverted to that once “futuristic” architecture. Back and forth, from old to new and new to old, the art, architecture, and functional components of society waver between stark sleekness and overstuffed bulk. The wavering might derive from the desire to be different from one generation to the next, forcing the architectural and technological pendulums to swing between what was and what could be.
 
No doubt you have some style of lighting, furniture, and home you favor. You might prefer the look of fire without the actual flames, finding comfort in virtual fire, such as the hours of video of logs burning in a fireplace that you can find on YouTube. Just looking at the artificial flames allows you to have very close to the same feelings you might have with real flames, less the smoke, carbon monoxide, or ash.
 
Attempting to recapture the ambience of the past through modern tech’s devices might also indicate that we are in essence somewhat simple in our basic desires for a stable life un-beset by the coldness of concrete and steel, of wires and cubicles, and of stark functionalism. Sitting in a room lighted by LED “flames” provides the illusion that we can go back, can relive simpler times—as long as we have efficient and functional conveniences like “fires” we can start with an electric switch.

When life-styles change, people discover a little bit more about themselves, or at least, a bit more about how they respond to change. For people living in Köppen’s C and D climates—essentially temperate transition zones between the continuous warmth of the tropics and the bitter cold of boreal lands—a yearly acclimatization is a common experience.* There is no need to acclimate in a steady state. The summer clothes stay in closets during winter, and the winter clothes stay in closets during the summer. And that same principle is especially true of human “weather.” The daily small fluctuations of life are normal, and every psyche lives acclimatized during an uninterrupted season of “normality.” An adapted psyche wears the same social clothing, and there’s no need to run to the storage closet to pull out garb for a different season.
 
In the green-technology circles of Germany, some have been concerned about Dunkelflauten, what can be translated as “dark doldrums.” Electrical grid managers believe that solar cell and wind power technologies have to have backups for days on which the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine. In 2020 people all over the world are experiencing their own form of Dunkelflauten as their normal activities stop. The pandemic is a period of psychological and social Dunkelflauten, and such an abruptly occurring change in human weather has forced a new kind of acclimatization on much, if not on all, of humanity.
 
The concern that the grid managers have about changing over completely to “green” energy has them scrambling to discover ways to anticipate Dunkelflauten and to adapt the electrical grid to their eventuality. They know that there are weaknesses in the electrical grid system that might be exacerbated by dark and calm days—or, in fact, by other disruptions, such as overwhelming DC current from solar flares. And they know they must incorporate alternative energy systems “just in case.”
 
Now practically everyone has encountered in a pandemic a sequence of unusual days when the current of life (and lifestyles) has been interrupted, even halted by a dark disease. Throughout the world psyches have to adapt; societies, too. The season has changed abruptly. An early frost has arrived in the midst of a vibrant life. And just as people shudder and shiver at the onset of autumn, so they also become aware of their bodies. The transition between seasons gives people a renewed perspective on themselves and instills in them a heightened self-awareness.  
 
The lessons of temperature acclimatization indicate that humans can periodically become more self-aware and that they can also adapt to physical change. The lessons of these pandemic Dunkelflauten indicate the need for both patience and anticipation. Waiting is difficult, as sailors found out when their ships entered the doldrums. But Earth is a dynamic planet, and even in the subtropical doldrums, winds eventually blow; ships eventually move.
 
Those who have learned to adapt to yearly fluctuations in weather know to have clothing for another season handy because another season is inevitable; its coming, ineluctable. The current of life might be interrupted by a dark calm right now. Be patient; the winds of social activity will blow and the darkness will give way to sunshine. But during these Dunkelflauten, you have an opportunity to become more self-aware.
 
*When the usual early warm days of August and early September succumb to autumn’s approach, a drop from temperatures in the 80sF to those in the 50sF makes people shiver; after a winter of cold days, a rise to the 50sF makes people cherish the “warmth.” The human body takes a while to adapt.