In Search of a Softer Tone

Once a week, originally on Mondays but in recent years, Wednesdays, for a little more than a decade, I've written (or tried to) about topics and concerns centered mostly about Norwich, Connecticut, where I live with my wife. 

Those commentaries ranging from topics as varied as the construction of traffic roundabouts, through the priorities of city and board of education annual budgets, to veterans' commemorative events and (far) more, end up on the pages of The Bulletin as well as the newspaper's website. 

What people who read them in either place may not know (and possibly may care even less about) is that I've been writing and posting on the internet ('blogging') on a daily basis for over a dozen years. At no point in any of that time have I ever allowed my lack of knowledge or information on a subject to in any way ever hinder or prevent me from having an opinion. That is, not surprisingly also true for today as well.

I mention all of that because today's words on a Wednesday, are about each of us who lives in Norwich while also acknowledging how in recent days the world beyond ourselves requires, if not actually demands, we realize we are so many people in the same device and how sometimes we tend to lose sight of that forest of commonality because of our focus on our own tree.  

If I may be allowed to update a well-known phrase from Thomas Paine, "these (too) are times to try  men's (and women's) souls." Crises like the Coronavirus don't change who we are so much as they reveal us to ourselves, and if I may be blunt, COVID-19 is doing an astonishing job of laying bare so much about who we are as a nation and a society whose social contract should bring us together but, instead, has not been as stressed since the days that immediately following the darkness and despair of 9/11. 

So many of our routines that have become rituals are being altered and tested; how we respond and react says more about us than we may wish to hear. And that's human nature: we like to learn but we may not enjoy being taught and are perhaps quicker to show one another a rough edge. But, to borrow a word from my wife's native language, German, we can and should be a little sanfter, softer, with each other right now as together we make our way to and through this.

So much is new: It's strange to realize toilet paper and disinfectant wipes have become, at least for the time being, more valuable than gold bullion or BitCoin, but here we are. And we've learned to use phrases in our daily vocabularies that didn't even exist a month ago like "social distancing" and "flattening the curve." 

I'd hope one of the things we've also learned (again) is that blame-gaming and scapegoating can and will do nothing at this moment to make us safe(r) and that as comfortable as we've become in our bubbles with our technology and lifestyles, it's the exercise of a thousand small, and nearly-forgotten, habits and virtues that will keep us from becoming as hard as the days we are currently living through. 

If nothing else we should continue to believe despite the very real dangers of times like these that the world is full of brave and caring people and, if for whatever reason, you can't seem to find one right now then you must become one yourself.
-bill kenny