Twin Peaks is a good show to revisit in the middle of a global public health crisis — if only because its audiovisual iconography perfectly reflects the dark, absurd time that we are living in. Among the famous bits I keep coming back to is the line, “It is happening again,” when The Giant warns Agent Dale Cooper of more murder and mayhem to come on episode seven of season two.
The Giant’s words keep ringing in my head as I watch what’s happening to our society. In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic is, of course, unprecedented. As a civilization, as a species, we are more connected now than ever. This is precisely why something that happens in a faraway city such as Wuhan has huge ramifications for those of us who live thousands of miles away. The ease of travel has enabled the virus.
Then there is the fact that the virus itself enables the virus. Based on the available data we have, asymptomatic transmission is the other reason why COVID-19 has exploded into our lives. We don’t know when and if we are sick. Some sicken and die. Others sicken and survive, often while dealing with lingering complications. Many others have mild symptoms to zero symptoms. The virus has us all playing a cruel game of lottery. Ebola is far deadlier by comparison, but you know when you have Ebola. This virus seems smarter. Can you call a virus cunning? It seems to be the wrong word in many respects, and yet it feels right.
In spite of all that, this is by far not our first pandemic. Humanity has dealt with this phenomenon before, for better or for worse. We will deal with it again. Viruses have evolved alongside us. They are in our DNA. They are not strangers.
I feel angry and scared when I am confronted with science denialists and outright conspiracy theorists who wish to discredit the doctors and nurses on the front lines of this pandemic. I am also frustrated with the hysteria, however. For one thing, while stress can motivate us to an extent, it can also wring us out, leave us spent. Stress appears to have a complicated relationship with our immune system, to say the least. It can also simply lead us to making the wrong choices. Or to treating our fellow human beings unkindly (I have now heard way too many stories of people being threatened with death in grocery stores simply because someone else perceived them as standing too close, just to give you a very obvious example). Or to hoard stuff, putting unnecessary pressure on supply chains. Or to altogether forget we live in a society.
I owe a tremendous debt to psychiatrists at Howard University for helping me change my life for the better before the pandemic started, and for helping me keep myself in a good place as it has laid siege to our daily lives. Howard is a shining beacon — because of people like professor Alyce Gullatee, who herself succumbed to the virus last week, leaving behind grieving people, and a tremendous legacy. Howard, a historically black university, is also a place that has reminded me that, and I have to emphasize this, The Horror Is Nothing New.
Privileged people in this country, and in the world, just haven’t been exposed to it as much as others. Privilege can make you both inflexible, slow to adapt, unable to grasp a changing environment — and it can make you go into overdrive, be too vulnerable, feel yourself caving in, overwhelmed with grief for a past that no longer exists.
It’s not OK to be cruel and destructive during a pandemic. But it is OK to have some perspective. It’s OK to have a moment. It’s OK to remember that crises come and they go. We are all changed by a crisis. That too is normal. Nothing stands still in this world. We are literally hurtling through space as I type this, as you read this. And a tiny bit of fatalism can go a long way when you remember that hey, being alive is ultimately fatal. In one way or another.
I’m not telling you to stop caring. But I am telling you to pick your battles now — including the battles with the monsters under your bed, with the shadows in your mind. This has happened before. It will happen again. Do what you must. The rest will fall into place, one way or another.
Image credit: Anastasia Gepp