I had the flu last week
Miscellanea #53: Learning from the pandemic, overcoming imposter syndrome, and finding solace in photobooks
Vandalism-art-replica of Magritte’s ‘The Treachery of Images’ on Bayou St. John
This pandemic seems to have a lot of people forgetting how much it sucks to be really, truly sick. I had the flu (or something resembling it, I didn’t get tested) just a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll do you the favor of reminding you that it absolutely stinks to come down with a serious illness. Fever is painfully miserable, as is not knowing when it’ll finally dissipate. Sore throats, congestion, nausea — they wear you out. It’s the dragging on that sucks so much. One of the worst parts of being sick is laying down all day, for days, with little-to-no motivation. It’s boring, and not the kind of boring you welcome — sickness is not a vacation (insert lame Corona joke here)! So… on top of the danger of spreading this thing around, I feel obligated to jog your memory: being sick sucks.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter. Everyone on Twitter wants to change everything, and their solutions almost always lie outside of themselves. But Coronavirus has reminded us of how change really happens, and I hope this lesson sticks with us. To really turn the tide, we’ve gotta know that change starts small, with the individual, from the inside out. Learning from this can carry us a long way, and not just in the way of flattening the curve of a pandemic.
In recovery movements, there’s a passage oft-recited called the ‘acceptance passage’. It’s a great reminder to truly accept what’s outside of your control and to focus your energy on what you can change inside of yourself. The parallel prayer is popular and powerful in its own right: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The last line in the acceptance passage reads, “I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.” Big change starts small. Take your cues from nature; take your time. A seed becomes a tree, creek becomes a river, and while we’re at it — you know where you came from.
Link-demic
Yes, You Actually Can Do Something About The Coronavirus
“Community interventions like event closures have an important role in limiting Covid transmission, but individual behavior changes are even more important. Community interventions are temporary and socially and economically costly. Individual actions are powerful and permanent.”
Decrease in Economic Activity Due to COVID-19 Reduced Air Pollution and Saved Lives
“It seems overall incorrect and foolhardy to conclude that pandemics are good for health… but the calculation is perhaps a useful reminder of the often-hidden health consequences of the status quo, i.e. the substantial costs that our current way of doing things exacts on our health and livelihoods.”
And here’s the most helpful article I’ve read on the coronavirus.
To stay on top of things, I’ve chosen to subscribe to Quartz’s COVID-19-dedicated newsletter.
Miscellinkea
On getting over imposter syndrome
“Sensitive people who are also creators will naturally question themselves. It’s partly what makes the work good. Questioning yourself means that you’re digging deep, looking for what you believe to be true.”
The infinite scroll
“It all happened in the way that decline generally happens in American culture, which is one anxious, hopeful, cynical capitulation at a time. We have compressed and corroded and finally collapsed what used to be the core of a publication—its relationship with its readers, and the basic notion that one should not make it hard for them to read.”
Is it OK to have a child? Be warned — this one is long.
Smell the ink and drift away: why I find solace in photobooks
“Every great photobook is a granary of decisions, an invitation into the realm of the senses.”
“I prefer my hesitations, my false paths, my stammering, to a preconceived idea.”
— Robert Doisneau