Day 21 Macro to Micro; or, Things Are Getting Personal Now

Let’s be clear.

Public health, as a discipline, is macro. It’s theoretical.
Health care, as a discipline, is micro. It’s practical.

The U.S. government has utterly failed its constituency on the theoretical level.
Practically, life has become sketchy.

In an article this morning, “Covid-19 Changed How the World Does Science, Together” by Matt Apuzzo and David D. Kirkpatrick, they quote Adrian Hill, the head of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, one of the largest vaccine research centers at an academic institution.

“This is playing at home.”

Doesn’t that say it all?

The sine wave of emotional reactivity is affecting all of us. You could not have failed to see how I got so outraged a couple days ago. Now, I’m quieter, but more serious.

Have you ever eaten a “wish sandwich”?

“A new Dallas food-bank client, Adedyo Codrington, a trade-show worker and union steward, filed for unemployment as soon as his jobs were canceled on March 8. But the first check would not arrive in time. So Mr. Codrington, a 41-year-old father of two, went to the food bank, only to learn its supplies had run out. Humiliated, he tried again last week, arriving early. But people were already lined up around the block by then, and he left with a lone bag of green beans. Colleagues scrounged together $100 for him, but it is nearly gone, and he is down to eating just one meal a day, living off sugar water and what he calls “wish sandwiches” — two slices of bread with imaginary filling.”

People who never in a squillion years, hard-working, honorable people who have worshipped at the American Altar of the Great God Self-Sufficiency need help—to eat, to feed their families, to pay the cost of housing and electricity. And they need it now, not in three weeks when the government gets it together to mail out the stimulus.

Children, and some adults, like to eat every day.

Cara Buckley writes in “ʻNever Thought I Would Need It’ Americans Put Pride Aside to Seek Aid,” “By the hundreds of thousands, Americans are asking for help for the first time in their lives, from nail technicians in Los Angeles to airport workers in Fort Lauderdale, from bartenders in Phoenix to former reality show contestants in Minnesota. Biting back shame, and wondering guiltily about others in more dire straits, they are applying for unemployment, turning to GoFundMe, asking for money on Instagram, quietly accepting handouts from equally strapped co-workers, and showing up in unprecedented numbers at food banks, which in turn are struggling to meet soaring demand as volunteers, many of them retirees, stay home for safety.”

Stalwart realist Governor Andrew Cuomo’s brother has the coronavirus.

My husband reported to me yesterday that people on his Facebook page were starting to write things like, “Okay, someone I know has died from COVID-19.”

Things are getting personal now. Up close and personal.

First, let’s acknowledge that public health and its policies are theoretical. Its inefficiencies, however, are practical and getting extremely personal.

A nurse I know is working her shifts and then coming home, showering, putting her work clothes in a plastic bag, starting the wash, and making face masks as fast as her sewing machine can stitch. She’s told her Facebook family that she’ll make a mask for anyone who wants it for the cost of the fabric and shipping. She’s sewing for hours at a time.

Second, let’s acknowledge that there is a difference between needs and wants. Wants are theoretical until we fulfill them. Needs are practical, personal, and nonnegotiable.

Sadly, as personal need grows exponentially in our country because of the self-quarantine we have all, to one degree or another been asked to adopt, we who have needs that are unfulfilled are apologetic.

“I’m sorry but can you help me? I’m sorry but I need food, I’m sorry but I need rent, I’m sorry but I need help.”

Why are we sorry for what we need?

And worse, why do we feel ashamed for having needs?

Human beings, Beloved, are needy.

Like that, don’t like it, it matters not. It’s Truth with a Capital T. We are creatures who need. Our bodies need, our hearts need, our minds need, our spirits need.

Thomas Friedman writing in “With the Coronavirus, It’s Again Trump vs. Mother Nature” posits, “That is why the first rule of scientists for climate change mitigation happens to be the first rule for public health officials of Covid-19 mitigation: Manage the unavoidable so that you can avoid the unmanageable.”Co

We already know what’s unmanageable, but what, in an American life, is unavoidable?

Humans, American and otherwise, have bodies.
Bodies have certain minimum requirements.
At base, we need shelter, heating or cooling, clothing, water, food, air.

In 2020, I’d add electricity and wifi.

Some of us also need medicines in order to survive.

These are unavoidable. We need them to survive. These are personal needs for the care and keeping of our bodies. Oh, also, exercise! But I meant externally-supplied needs. Exercise (read: discipline) is an inside job.

There are, however, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs—most of them ephemeral—that can help deal with this crisis of the pandemic.

Personal mental needs:
            enough stimulation to keep your brain going
            coping skills for loneliness
            dealing with a lack of touch

Personal emotional needs:
            reinforcement that there will be an end to this
            reminders that you are loved as you are
            coping skills for fear

Personal spiritual needs:
            figuring out how to make meaning in a pandemic
            holding strong to faith and perseverance
            inspiring others as a method for staying inspired

And these were just off the top of my head! I’m sure there’s a squillion more situationally-specific ones.

There’s a meta-need that often goes unnamed, however, which, if you can put it into place, will help you meet every other personal need.

In one word: STRUCTURE.

Going to work is the backbone of the structure of most adults in the U.S. Think a moment. Think what you do daily in order to get there, dressed, and ready to go. Think what you spend your time doing in the office. Think of what it takes to get you home. Structure, all of it.

For those of us who are entrepreneurial types, most of us know how to structure a day because we do it every day, all day. If you don’t have that skill, though, it can be hard to learn it when you’re used to depending upon external structures and the learning curve is as steep as it is when the stakes are as high as they are right now.

The first thing anyone has to know about structuring a day is what time you like to wake up. Yes, I really do mean like to wake up, not setting an alarm so you have to get up. I’m a wake up at dawn person; my husband is happier around 8:30. Finding a beginning of a rhythm for your day will anchor the rest of the schedule. Just that one thing!

Now if you’re working for someone else from home, they probably have a say in when you get up. Good enough. Caring for young children will also give you a natural rhythm.

There’s a word for natural rhythm that takes us full circle here: biorhythm. People have internally natural schedules which we routinely ignore. It’s really not good for us. The thing I like best about this is that the bio part of biorhythm is found in your body, which, if you’re here on Earth, you have.

Bodies thrive in structure. So can minds, hearts, and spirits, if we’ll take the time to notice our own rhythms and honor them.

There was a review of the Netflix series “Unorthodox” in this morning’s Times. In it, the author of the book upon which the series is based, Deborah Feldman, cites a German adage which she translates as meaning “generalizing about everyone through the prism of one experience.”

Your needs will be both the same and different from those of others. Human needs will be the same at the macro level, but at the micro level you get to consider the prism of one experience—your own—in order to structure the unavoidable so we can all avoid the unmanageable.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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