When we put our understanding of universal and relativistic motion aside, we run our lives against a series of ostensibly still backgrounds. Just as we see cars move along a neighborhood street because the background doesn’t appear to move, so we see our personal lives in the context of backgrounds. We recognize who we are against a background of time, space, and regularities of all kinds. The neighborhood typically remains the same, though sometimes the eye catches some change: The growth of a tree or bush, the crack in a sidewalk, new furniture on the neighbor’s porch, maybe even a new neighbor.
Of course, there are times when the background changes rapidly. Tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes do that. One can find in a destroyed neighborhood an unrecognizable background, confusing in the least and horrifying in the worst instances. And the late winter and early spring of 2020 is one of those instances, potentially one as bad as 1917 and 1918, a time when WWI and the Spanish Flu destroyed the backgrounds against which tens to hundreds of millions of people had established their lives.
We find ourselves comfortable once we take a background for granted. The routine of daily life, whether a happy or sad one, is a steady background. It’s that steadiness, that lack of change, on which we can make the changes we choose to make or avoid. But all backgrounds as seemingly steady as the distant stars aren’t really steady. Those neighborhood bushes and trees do grow as do the neighbor’s children. Sometimes the plants die or the neighbor moves them; sometimes the neighbor moves or dies. Those disruptions to the background are inevitable in a finite world of entropy. No system, and therefore no background, is immutable, unless, of course, we count the background of constant change and underlying chaos on which we psychologically impose order and stillness.
We notice large changes in the background, that storm devastated neighborhood, for example. And we can’t stop thinking of them. Or, as the new background of 24/7 reports on the 2020 pandemic reveal, we can’t stop seeing our lives against this new background. Disruption. That’s the new, though no doubt temporary, background now. The world neighborhood has undergone a rapid change. Things once recognizable no longer are so.
Interestingly, there are still in middle March those who would pretend the background of their lives is unchanging. Mostly, the youth, particularly, college students on spring break. In non-war-torn areas, they have lived against an unchanging background of parties, concerts, and indulgence to various degrees based on their socioeconomic status. Sure, there are many among them who have struggled to keep the background constant, those who have worked to maintain that background and those who have worked to establish a new ideal background. But still there are those who, believing in their own immutability, would continue as they have continued against a recognizable background of youth, health, and support from the previous generation.
Maybe the background won’t change for millions. It didn’t for millions when WWI and the Spanish Flu changed so much in the early twentieth century. But the inevitability of a change of background eventually strikes most of us as we age (or survive). And when it does hit us psychologically as well as physically, we have a choice. We can keep focusing on the old background either nostalgically or sadly, or we can start focusing on the new one forced upon us and think of it as a transition to some new background, some new neighborhood in which we will live with increasing familiarity and security.
With one notable exception. Memory is a background, too. Yes, it can fade, wilt, and even die like some bush or tree, but it can also persist. We will find in memories clear and fuzzy a background against which we will understand, accept, or reject the ensuing background that replaces the older one. And that means that even backgrounds have backgrounds.
Of course, there are times when the background changes rapidly. Tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes do that. One can find in a destroyed neighborhood an unrecognizable background, confusing in the least and horrifying in the worst instances. And the late winter and early spring of 2020 is one of those instances, potentially one as bad as 1917 and 1918, a time when WWI and the Spanish Flu destroyed the backgrounds against which tens to hundreds of millions of people had established their lives.
We find ourselves comfortable once we take a background for granted. The routine of daily life, whether a happy or sad one, is a steady background. It’s that steadiness, that lack of change, on which we can make the changes we choose to make or avoid. But all backgrounds as seemingly steady as the distant stars aren’t really steady. Those neighborhood bushes and trees do grow as do the neighbor’s children. Sometimes the plants die or the neighbor moves them; sometimes the neighbor moves or dies. Those disruptions to the background are inevitable in a finite world of entropy. No system, and therefore no background, is immutable, unless, of course, we count the background of constant change and underlying chaos on which we psychologically impose order and stillness.
We notice large changes in the background, that storm devastated neighborhood, for example. And we can’t stop thinking of them. Or, as the new background of 24/7 reports on the 2020 pandemic reveal, we can’t stop seeing our lives against this new background. Disruption. That’s the new, though no doubt temporary, background now. The world neighborhood has undergone a rapid change. Things once recognizable no longer are so.
Interestingly, there are still in middle March those who would pretend the background of their lives is unchanging. Mostly, the youth, particularly, college students on spring break. In non-war-torn areas, they have lived against an unchanging background of parties, concerts, and indulgence to various degrees based on their socioeconomic status. Sure, there are many among them who have struggled to keep the background constant, those who have worked to maintain that background and those who have worked to establish a new ideal background. But still there are those who, believing in their own immutability, would continue as they have continued against a recognizable background of youth, health, and support from the previous generation.
Maybe the background won’t change for millions. It didn’t for millions when WWI and the Spanish Flu changed so much in the early twentieth century. But the inevitability of a change of background eventually strikes most of us as we age (or survive). And when it does hit us psychologically as well as physically, we have a choice. We can keep focusing on the old background either nostalgically or sadly, or we can start focusing on the new one forced upon us and think of it as a transition to some new background, some new neighborhood in which we will live with increasing familiarity and security.
With one notable exception. Memory is a background, too. Yes, it can fade, wilt, and even die like some bush or tree, but it can also persist. We will find in memories clear and fuzzy a background against which we will understand, accept, or reject the ensuing background that replaces the older one. And that means that even backgrounds have backgrounds.
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