Monday March 23rd 2020 12:14am

In times of uncertainty many turn to faith in god, religion, humanism, the mystic unknown where somewhere something is looking out for mankind against all odds. Our habits and daily rituals become a place we create to seek solace when the world has gone crazy.

When every day feels like we're living in a worst-case scenario movie we cling to our rituals to give us comfort and stability. 

  • Coffee in the morning
  • the daily jog
  • checking social media
  • fixing meals
  • clipping our nails
  • showering and dressing ourselves
  • putting one shoe in front of the other.

Stability is necessary to continue walking, moving, creating something going forward. 

I believe much of the time we are so accustomed to putting our happiness in the future that when the future no longer seems to hold the guarantee of better things we start to lose faith in the process.

It becomes harder to hold our heads as high standing in line, waiting to enter the grocery store, and casting accusatory eyes on anyone who coughs in our proximity. 

"<Ahem...excuse me...wait...what? Where are you running to?>"

As a native Austinite, music is in my blood and one of the telling signs that COVID19 was a serious issue, not just something to take lightly was the canceling of SXSW. Southby, an Austin music festival, perhaps the biggest music festival in the word, while providing many with memories that last a lifetime has a significant impact on local musicians that isn't always positive. 

It's contributed to the gentrification of Austin, Texas as the music festival attracted monied interests with no interest in preserving the culture of the city investors became so enamored with, as historical icons were BULLDOZED for condos & hotels.

As James McMurtry, local legend whose father wrote the book that became a movie, Lonesome Dove, sings: "I'm not from here, I just moved here, from some place far away. People tell me I should've been here before it got ruined by people like me."

A friend of mine recently posted this on Facebook sharing his feelings about SXSW.

And... I agree with these sentiments. I listen to a commercial free radio station called Radio Paradise (most excellent).The owner, Bill, will come on every 15 songs or so and say,

"I hope you are staying safe & calm during these troubling times."

The canceling of SXSW was only the first of many new changes we've had to adapt to in Austin, Texas. It was the canary in the coal mine if you will, as businesses sacrificed and the city, millions of dollars in revenue to preserve public safety and stop the spread of the corona virus.

I apologize, for not keeping up, and blogging more frequently.

I've been fighting an illness that's been quite serious (unrelated to COVID19) and combining that with the panic in the media, the streets, the grocery stores I've been overwhelmed, emotionally and mentally.

For 4 days straight I stared at my computer screen, researching, investigating, compiling documents of data on the outbreak, frozen, in paralysis. Unable to move, literally sitting in bed googling, cross referencing, putting all my research skills honed to perfection working as a professor's assistant back in college to good use. But it was making me sick, emotionally.

I had to step back. I was in too deep.

My health wasn't improving this way, and our immune systems do respond positively to elevated moods. I was re-diagnosed and found I was suffering from an illness that was serious, but not as serious or fatal as the first was I was misdiagnosed as having. Sweat broke across my forehead, I felt a heavy weight lifted off my back, and I broke free of the panic coma I was trapped in.

I started making music again, and realized how perilous the balance is between staying informed and being a trauma-junkie. If it bleeds it reads, was a saying I'd heard as a reporter when I worked at a newspaper in another life. I started walking again, outside, 1 mile, 4 miles, gradually building resilience, internally, to the insanity we're facing everywhere we look.

I cannot emphasize enough, how important it is to maintain your mental health, to develop and practice self-care routines, right now, is crucial. (In addition to washing your hands 20 seconds with soap before splashing water - that's what actually washing your hands is - and disinfecting commonly touched surfaces with bleach spray, lysol, pinesol or white vinegar in a spray bottle and social -correction- physical distancing).

Sorry, I'm ranting again, the OCD level I'm on right now is unparalleled but it's survival. And survival isn't a joke. What are we supposed to do if the ones leading the governments of the world are saying they don't know how to handle this? Questions like this keep many of us awake at night.

We keep forgetting that where there's a will there's a way. We keep forgetting that humanity has overcome epidemics before with less technology and more ignorance. We keep forgetting the power of adaptive radiation. Adaptive radiation is, in the words of Wikipedia:

"In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, creates new challenges, or opens new environmental niches."

Yeah uh...We are definitely in the 'creates new challenges' part of that. We are learning how to evolve as a species to preserve our ecological niche in planet earth right now. Scientists, biologists, medics, really smart people all over the world are working to find a cure, aworkaround, a treatment. There is a tipping point where group consciousness will coalesce.

It's the reason why younger people seem smarter at younger ages, in addition to improved living conditions, nutrition and technology there is a certain kind of genetic intelligence that develops faster the more people are born into better environments. To quote Radiohead,

"Fitter, happier, more productive Comfortable (not drinking too much)"

A critical mass is approaching, I'm sure of it, for finding a cure. Whether we repurpose drugs used to treat SARS and MERs (as Dr Fauci mentioned as a possible cure recently) or develop an amazing new treatment in another way - this many minds thinking together, globally, creates its own momentum in a way that evolutionary biology predicts, will pivot our species to evolve to survive.

We will survive this. As my ex told me on the phone today, "This is the planet kicking us in the butt telling us to take better care of our bodies, eat healthier and follow a higher path.

So keep your head up. Have hope. There will be some rocky roads and it ain't all ice cream, but we can and will get through this intact.

Have faith. Be safe. Stay calm.