I remember thinking in early 2020 that this might be the end of the world. I remember being anxious about going outside, breathing the same air as other people, about the inevitable collapse of society.

I started work-from-home in March, a few days before my birthday. Too bad, I found out later, my friends at work were organizing a big blowout. I never got that party.

My dad died in a nursing home that April. I took some small comfort that it was over quickly for him. Sick in the morning, dead by the afternoon.

My kid was miserable. I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Waking up in your room. Going to school in your room. School: A regular grid of silent black rectangles while teachers — who were never trained to be their own network administrators –struggled with getting Zoom to work.

I felt ashamed that I felt sorry for myself. There were so many families that had it so much worse. But I did feel bad. I felt sorry for myself, sorry for my loved ones, sorry for the whole damned world.

I’m not arrogant enough to feel the universe was designed with my happiness in mind. I knew it was uncaring, cold math ruling the collisions of particles, the movement of charged particles through EM fields, and eventually, the propagation of genetic traits through a population.

But still, it did nag at me. What does it mean?

Striving to find the meaning of it all was futile, and would only result in frustration.

Despair…or Peace