Invincible

COVID-19 is a stark reminder of how the perception of human invincibility can fall flat in the face of an invisible force of nature. It’s a reminder of how exposed and vulnerable we are as humans.

COVID-19 is a tough reminder of how similar we are as humans. When life strikes at you, it strikes without discrimination. We are human beings first, and then come nationalities, languages, religion, education, developed or developing economies.

COVID-19 is kind reminder of how inter-connected and inter-dependent we are. If society’s most vulnerable fall prey to the illness, the risk of contagion increases for everyone. Everyone needs care. Everyone needs testing. Suddenly, we can’t escape the possibility of saving our lives, if we are not thinking of everybody.

Over the past few years, there has been a notable surge in this notion of separatism. Without getting into the manusha or the political drivers or ramifications, the world in general has increasingly been a place where policies and regimes and political leaders have been increasingly pushing this idea of us vs. them. Trade tariffs, border walls, brexit, anti-semitism, challenging secular nationalism... you name it; the list goes on. The amount of energy that has been expended by governments, capital markets, institutions and even individuals in in either supporting or opposing or analyzing these shifts, from my perspective frankly, seems outright immaterial. What for?

COVID-19 offers a reminder of humility, of kindness, of acceptance and of collaboration. It is increasingly becoming imperative for the same governments and leaders that were rooting for separatism to come together to combat what has quickly become a global pandemic.

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Back to the idea of invincibility: the concept that unfortunate and undesirable things happen over there to other people and not to us. We are somehow shielded from it. This fallacy of human invincibility really dawned on me after spending an extended period of time, day after day, in the waiting room of the ICU at a crowded public hospital in India, where my mom fought for her life, while on life support. Cellphone connection didn’t work inside the hospital. As a result, for the most part, I was disconnected from my social network. For most of the time, the only distraction from my distraught emotions, non-stop worrying and pre-occupied thoughts was to shift my focus to observing the buzzing scene around me.

I witnessed a whole range of life threatening medical cases that came through, hundreds, if not more. I saw worried family members and other caregivers of the patients, helpless beings tied to hospital beds at the mercy of the healthcare professionals and the higher powers above. People of all ages, people from all levels of the socio-economic strata, people at different levels of political and economic power, people with different educational backgrounds. Religion didn’t seem to make a difference. Education didn’t matter. Wealth didn’t do much outside of influencing the ability to get hospital admissions, in the local context. It almost didn’t matter, who you were, where you came from and what you had done with your life. You were pretty much at the mercy of things largely outside your control.

From the illiterate young mother of a 19 year old son who was fighting a brain tumor, to the politician whose father needed to be on life support, to an highly educated family of a middle aged man fighting stage four lung cancer, to the mother of a girl who had been in the hospital for 2 years straight fighting a rare disease. I saw it all. Day in, day out. It was in that time period, that I happened to read Atul Gawande’s “Immortal”, seeking some wisdom to help me tide through that phase; a book I recommend to all, but particularly those with aging parents.

It was then that I truly appreciated and realized the fragility of our existence. It didn’t matter what language I spoke, how much money I made, how educated I was, what religion I followed, and what circumstances I grew up in. I was at the mercy of circumstances and fate that seemed entirely of my control, much like many of my waiting room peers and their struggling family members.

Fast forward three+ years, COVID-19 brings the same lessons to the fore. It is a reminder of our impermanence, of our mortality and our vulnerability.

It is a reminder to be kind, be humble and be grateful. Most of all, it is a reminder to be open and inclusive, in our mindset.

We are all more alike than we think we are.