Irregularly-Scheduled Programming

Throughout the course of the longest week in recent memory, disbelief and disappointment yielded to deference. Suffice it to say that the decision to cancel and/or postpone most of our remaining concerts was a no-brainer.

When we're not spending our "quarantime" looking after our loved ones and attempting to plan ahead, we're thinking: how, and when, can we share appropriate, relevant, and meaningful musical content? Not only for the weeks and months to come, but also for the next year and change?

I'm in no mood to default to platitudes to serve my field's agenda. As of yesterday, Glendale, my hometown, boasted its first diagnosis of COVD-19. Our daughter turns one on tomorrow. Happily, she won't be old enough to care when her birthday goes by with a whimper.

Also none the wiser: our three-year-old son, who was hospitalized with reactive airway disease for 5 days in January. Despite being a child, this places him in a dreaded high-risk group.

My husband Philip and I are as anxious as any reasonably sane adults are right now. Philip likened the surreality to "watching a tidal wave approach in slow motion." That said, we are also fortunate to be relishing the extra time with our children and each other.

***

There's something heartening about hitting pause en masse. One can't help but reflect on what is important -- and notice that, for once, most people agree.

Wants, relentless doing, coming out on top. Normally, they race on auto-pilot through an endless, sticky, existential goo. We've always sensed that oxygen is at a premium in the mire, but have muscled our way through all the same.

For the time being, all our wants and doings have been catapulted into a different plane. In this strange, new dimension, we have a more crystalline vantage point. How long will it take for our sight to adjust to these new conditions?

It's all too human to project some kind of divine or supernatural intent onto this pandemic. ("Mother nature's getting her revenge!" "God is punishing us for [choose your sin]!") As real as those feelings may be, they simply aren't fact. Coronavirus has nothing to do with us -- save for our function as hosts.

One of the most important books I've ever read is all about our irrepressible urge to ascribe intent. Descartes' Baby suggests that this instinct is exactly how we navigate our existence. More often than not, it serves the interests of our hive species well. The most basic example of this phenomenon at work: our ability -- and very real need -- to read others' minds.

Civilization -- our hive itself, on both the micro and macro levels -- rests on getting along. But anticipating others' thoughts and feelings with some modicum of accuracy is not enough to make that happen. Enter a remarkable bevy of man-made creations that more fully enable hive life.

Agriculture. Money. Shelter. Medicine. Language. Religion. The Arts. Culture. Yes, even Politics. To be an advanced society has always been to bring those, and more, to ever more developed places.

Paul Bloom calls anything and everything man-made an artifact. While that word carries a deceitful vibe, Bloom uses the philosopher's definition. In Latin, artificium derives from ars (art) and facere (make).

Ours is a world that is completely dominated by artifacts. Bloom writes:

"If you doubt this, go ahead -- touch something that is not an artifact. Maybe this is easy; perhaps you are reading this book naked on a desert island. But more likely you are sitting on a chair, lying on a bed, or standing, with a floor beneath your feet. If there is a window, you see roads, lawns, and buildings. If you are eating, the food in front of you -- a bagel and coffee, say -- has been put together with a process of design no different from the one that produced the bag in which you carried the bagel, or the cup that contains the coffee."

Ever since reading this passage, I've been more acutely aware of just how controlled our world is. Human fingerprints are everywhere if you look hard enough. To Bloom's point: I write this on my MacBook Pro while sitting cross-legged in bed. Our dog Knudsen, an 11-pound furball genetically engineered about as far from a wolf as is possible, is keeping my feet warm. The sound of the rain falling on my fireplace is cozy precisely because it means I am safely sheltered. And yes: every tree I can see out my window right now -- even the "native plants" on the lawns of the particularly eco-conscious -- were grown and planted by people.

Meanwhile, a non-artifact 1/90th the width of a human hair has our world at its knees. Some of our most precious artifacts -- namely, hospitals, medical equipment, economies, and governments -- are struggling to keep pace.

Turns out our world -- the world of artifacts, of our design and dominion -- and the world aren't one and the same. I'd like to think there will be grace in our collective surrender to that fact.

Another writer I admire, Leandra Medine (of Man Repeller -- don't judge), put it this way earlier today:

"It’s daunting to think that we’ve done such a good job creating lives and worlds and mentalities that have deluded us into believing we’ve earned certainty as if a rite of passage at the gates of adulthood, and further that until Sunday night, when coastal American cities started to formally close schools and table service at restaurants and bars, we had the reprieve of stepping outside and actually believing that maybe it wasn’t as bad as our newsfeeds were making it seem, that business would go on as usual IRL. But now, here I am. Here we are. Trying to find the story in what it means to be alive right now."

***

COVID-19's merciless apathy towards the human race is threatening in both literal and existential ways. Science and policy are how we will address the former -- with any luck, sooner rather than later. The latter is, while certainly less urgent, more challenging.

One of my favorite living minds, Jonathan Haidt, alleviates existential angst in a beautifully simple way. Instead of seeking out "the meaning of life," we'd do better to find "meaning within life." Looking for the meaning of is a fast-track to nihilism. Looking for meaning within is second-nature to our species. And this within is the very essence of the Arts.

Human beings will always hunger for meaningful connections and experiences. Isolation and restlessness will only increase our appetite.

Culture generators of all kinds are in the same boat right now. What do meaningful artistic experiences look like in today's, and tomorrow's, world? One in which I can't go to a restaurant with friends, but I can FaceTime them from home? Where, thanks to the internet, I can laugh at the fact that nothing but ill-conceived broccoli pizza crusts remain in Trader Joe's frozen section -- and learn what's happening on the other side of the world? When we are reminded anew, and in no uncertain terms, that no one can say what tomorrow brings?

In some ways, I'm looking forward to seeing what is born of this unprecedented time in human history. In music, in the arts, and in our social consciousness as a whole.