Corona Virus

In chaos theory, one cannot perhaps find a better example to explain the butterfly effect. How a small change ripples into the future. The term “butterfly effect” comes from an analogy where a butterfly that flaps its wings in Tokyo can cause a Tornado in Tennesse. It is not true, but is telling of the heavy inter-dependence that informs our daily lives.

If you think about how this entire mess started, it was just a single mutation of the corona virus that sunk into a single cell somewhere in Wuhan and made a tiny explosion. But in silence like in space. The first immune system panicked. In trying to clear the virus it tried to cough it out. More people got it, more cells died, more explosions happened. It shut a city first, then a province. It brought the army in, it made the hospitals flood. But still, in our bodies, physically, it is just the death of cells, one by one.

And the explosions multiplied exponentially. So did the people who succumbed to it. First it occupied a small section in page 5 in the newspapers. Slowly it became a headline. Province after Province. Then country after country. Italy shut down. Then the US shut down. Then the borders closed. Flights got grounded. Pollution went down. We started taking classes and hanging out on Zoom. We started cooking, slowing down, eating more, sleeping more and caring about our hobbies. We started tracking daily cases on Worldometer. Who had it worst? We saw the mass funerals in Italy. Till it just became numbers. Faceless, uninspiring.

The birds started chirping more. Mountain goats came to inspect a town in Whales. We lost jobs, our plans got stalled, we lost loved ones. We all found a reason to complain. We all also found a moment to pause and think about what we care for most in life. In our own ways we showed a tiny bit of ingenuity that makes us human. In caring for someone, in making longer calls home, in learning to cook. In social distancing. And times remain uncertain.

We owe it all to that single cell explosion. That happened in silence, like in space. But is telling of how closely our lives are linked.

And while we brace for another difficult day, for all of us that are still reading this in the privilege of our homes, we must remember the words of Charles Bukowski — “Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink”.