THE AFTERMATH

“What comes next?” is a question I get pretty often. And not just from my children, who are insatiable monsters.

The only simple answer is “I have no idea”, but that doesn’t exactly pay the bills, so I am constantly going through a (messy) process where I smash together:

• All of a situation’s known-knowns, known-unknowns, and (paradoxically) unknown-knowns

• Any potential stakeholders

• The co-benefits and threat multipliers

• The geopolitics

• The science

• And most importantly, the thing that never ever changes — the inescapable, inexplicably, indestructible humanity of us

All so I can not completely fumble when someone I respect asks the question.

But here’s the thing:

You might get nervous regarding how to respond — as a human, voter, colleague, parent, whatever — when something big and unexpected happens.

But where I get most nervous is when something big and expected happens, and nobody’s talking about what the plan is for the day after.

For the aftermath.

Bernie decided today is Long COVID Awarness Day, so I thought it was an appropriate moment to try to pull together the threads of why Long COVID pisses me off so much, examples of other self-defeating issues we never learned from, and a blueprint for how to do better better.

Because it’s not only Long COVID Awareness Day, it’s also that — not unlike climate change (what a career!) — we’re standing on the precipice of a bunch of different shit, mostly knowing full well what need need to do to not fall down one side or the other, but just…not doing so much of it.

Of course, we have been here before: up shit’s creek, having actively chosen this as our spring break destination, and still without a paddle.

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