The depth of not knowing
(Another thing I wrote and then didn’t post.)
One aspect of this current COVID crisis is that there is just so much new information to take it. Information about the virus itself. News about how the pandemic is unfolding in my state, my country and my planet.
It is possible to cry “Information overload!” and run away from some of this, because daily life doesn’t require being able to quote global statistics off the top of one’s head nor be able to explain what the rules are on the other side of the world.
But I do need to know what the rules are for my state. I saved the government-issued directions to my phone, read them through carefully until they felt familiar. Now those rules are changing, and they will certainly change again. More information to shift through, trying to find what is relevant to me in articles which outline changes across the country.
Then there are new rules, new procedures and new rosters at work. (Oh my goodness, so many rosters, each one sounding like it’s going to be on-going, or at least for longer than just a week, but then something changes.) There are changes to timetables, to starting times and people’s days and time-in-lieu arrangements, to the tasks that we are assigned, to the technology we’re using.
That last has been a big learning curve. One I’ve found less overwhelming than some of my colleagues but even I have days like yesterday -- my computer threw a major tantrum in the middle of a zoom call and I couldn’t get the new office phones to work.
It is -- it is a lot.
Another aspect of this crisis is that there is so much I do not know. And, unlike many other topics, neither does anyone else.
I’ve been thinking about this. Most of our beliefs and choices about life -- work, education, recreation, relationships, social norms, community spaces, rules and politics -- are informed by years of information gathering. Past experiences. Family and friends’ experiences. Articles and opinion pieces shared by social networks. Stories. News reports. Scientific studies. History. Textbooks. Classroom discussions, lunchroom discussions, talk-back radio...
This is often not an objective, thorough or even accurate process of gathering data but something about it feels solid. You’ve taken time, considered multiple sources and made assessments about how reliable those sources are. You can benefit from the hindsight from other people’s situations and the choices they’ve made, even if you cannot know, when you’re making a decision about your situation, how this will turn out. Learn from the mistakes of others, you don’t have time to make them all yourself.
Even when we have to form opinions and make choices about new changes in our lives, those changes are rarely wholly unexpected. Some are somewhat predictable, the sorts of things we can assume will happen if everything goes to plan or can assume are likely to happen. Growing up, growing older. Graduations, jobs, bills, adult responsibilities. Births, deaths and marriages.
You can find yourself suddenly needing to know about a topic you’ve previously paid little attention to, because you’re, for example, buying your first car or filing your tax return or choosing a high school for your firstborn. But even if you really haven’t thought about a topic before, you’ve probably known for a while that this day would come.
Other changes are known possibilities, even if we hope and pray they won’t befall us. When my grandmother had a stroke, it wasn’t something I had ever worried might happen to her. But I knew about symptoms from First Aid training, I knew about how the brain functions from Psychology classes, I knew a little bit about therapy and support from someone in my family who used to work in a hospital. And if I wanted more information, I had access to it -- this is something there’s years and years of medical research about.
Which brings me back to this current COVID crisis.
Firstly, it’s not an event I ever considered could happen. It’s not a normal life milestone, and it’s not something I had thought to be afraid of. (Which may be an indication that I wasn’t paying attention but there we are.)
Secondly, I feel like I don’t have access to the usual depth and quality of data. I know coronaviruses are not new, even if this one is; I know pandemics aren’t new either. The medical community is still drawing upon years of research. And the sociologists and economists have years and years of research into the impact of plagues, wars, depressions and recessions, natural disasters and other calamitous events.
Yet I feel less confident in the experts, when they’re drawing upon only a few months of data. I feel less able to evaluate the opinions of others around me, the opinions voiced in the media.
And so, even though I hardly qualify as uninformed given the sheer volume of information I have consumed, I still… don’t know. I don’t know about easing restrictions: is this too much? not enough? I don’t know if our rules are fair or if our supports are truly adequate. I don’t know about public perception: will people turn against our politicians at the next election for the choices they’ve made? will people send their children when the schools reopen?
Are we making the right decisions at work? Will I make someone feel uncomfortable if I sit here?
I still have opinions. I make choices. I read the news. I stand in the living room and exclaim: Have the economists actually considered the long-term economic impact of traumatising the community with a wide-spread outbreak? (No, really, have they?)
But. I don’t know and the depth of that not-knowing is a new experience. Originally @ Dreamwidth.
One aspect of this current COVID crisis is that there is just so much new information to take it. Information about the virus itself. News about how the pandemic is unfolding in my state, my country and my planet.
It is possible to cry “Information overload!” and run away from some of this, because daily life doesn’t require being able to quote global statistics off the top of one’s head nor be able to explain what the rules are on the other side of the world.
But I do need to know what the rules are for my state. I saved the government-issued directions to my phone, read them through carefully until they felt familiar. Now those rules are changing, and they will certainly change again. More information to shift through, trying to find what is relevant to me in articles which outline changes across the country.
Then there are new rules, new procedures and new rosters at work. (Oh my goodness, so many rosters, each one sounding like it’s going to be on-going, or at least for longer than just a week, but then something changes.) There are changes to timetables, to starting times and people’s days and time-in-lieu arrangements, to the tasks that we are assigned, to the technology we’re using.
That last has been a big learning curve. One I’ve found less overwhelming than some of my colleagues but even I have days like yesterday -- my computer threw a major tantrum in the middle of a zoom call and I couldn’t get the new office phones to work.
It is -- it is a lot.
Another aspect of this crisis is that there is so much I do not know. And, unlike many other topics, neither does anyone else.
I’ve been thinking about this. Most of our beliefs and choices about life -- work, education, recreation, relationships, social norms, community spaces, rules and politics -- are informed by years of information gathering. Past experiences. Family and friends’ experiences. Articles and opinion pieces shared by social networks. Stories. News reports. Scientific studies. History. Textbooks. Classroom discussions, lunchroom discussions, talk-back radio...
This is often not an objective, thorough or even accurate process of gathering data but something about it feels solid. You’ve taken time, considered multiple sources and made assessments about how reliable those sources are. You can benefit from the hindsight from other people’s situations and the choices they’ve made, even if you cannot know, when you’re making a decision about your situation, how this will turn out. Learn from the mistakes of others, you don’t have time to make them all yourself.
Even when we have to form opinions and make choices about new changes in our lives, those changes are rarely wholly unexpected. Some are somewhat predictable, the sorts of things we can assume will happen if everything goes to plan or can assume are likely to happen. Growing up, growing older. Graduations, jobs, bills, adult responsibilities. Births, deaths and marriages.
You can find yourself suddenly needing to know about a topic you’ve previously paid little attention to, because you’re, for example, buying your first car or filing your tax return or choosing a high school for your firstborn. But even if you really haven’t thought about a topic before, you’ve probably known for a while that this day would come.
Other changes are known possibilities, even if we hope and pray they won’t befall us. When my grandmother had a stroke, it wasn’t something I had ever worried might happen to her. But I knew about symptoms from First Aid training, I knew about how the brain functions from Psychology classes, I knew a little bit about therapy and support from someone in my family who used to work in a hospital. And if I wanted more information, I had access to it -- this is something there’s years and years of medical research about.
Which brings me back to this current COVID crisis.
Firstly, it’s not an event I ever considered could happen. It’s not a normal life milestone, and it’s not something I had thought to be afraid of. (Which may be an indication that I wasn’t paying attention but there we are.)
Secondly, I feel like I don’t have access to the usual depth and quality of data. I know coronaviruses are not new, even if this one is; I know pandemics aren’t new either. The medical community is still drawing upon years of research. And the sociologists and economists have years and years of research into the impact of plagues, wars, depressions and recessions, natural disasters and other calamitous events.
Yet I feel less confident in the experts, when they’re drawing upon only a few months of data. I feel less able to evaluate the opinions of others around me, the opinions voiced in the media.
And so, even though I hardly qualify as uninformed given the sheer volume of information I have consumed, I still… don’t know. I don’t know about easing restrictions: is this too much? not enough? I don’t know if our rules are fair or if our supports are truly adequate. I don’t know about public perception: will people turn against our politicians at the next election for the choices they’ve made? will people send their children when the schools reopen?
Are we making the right decisions at work? Will I make someone feel uncomfortable if I sit here?
I still have opinions. I make choices. I read the news. I stand in the living room and exclaim: Have the economists actually considered the long-term economic impact of traumatising the community with a wide-spread outbreak? (No, really, have they?)
But. I don’t know and the depth of that not-knowing is a new experience. Originally @ Dreamwidth.