So Much Has Changed

In just a couple of weeks it will be one year since I retired. Still in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis and barely 6-months after the January 6 attack on our nation’s capital, I launched into my new life –still holding my breath. By year’s end more than 8.47 billion vaccinations against the deadly virus were administered globally, while more than 2.7 percent of the American workforce quit their jobs. This year Russia invaded Ukraine, setting off the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II and causing the displacement of millions of refugees. Momentarily our attention was diverted when, with much fanfare, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the British throne.

So much has changed since my comparatively uneventful days of working full time. Granted, mankind has always continually swerved from calamity to crisis, but today’s world feels different to me. It’s as if someone has turned up the volume and stripped away much of the insulation meant to protect our eardrums. To date, more than 6.3 million people worldwide have succumbed to the coronavirus, and tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have died in a needless war. Hearing these numbers, it’s hard to avoid a kind of emotional numbness. A quote by Joseph Stalin regretably says it best: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths are a statistic.”

There’s another statistic. More than 7.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine, while an estimated 8 million more individuals have been displaced within the country. According to a recent report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) there are 32.1 million refugees around the world today, the highest population ever recorded. That’s more people than populate the 10 largest cities in the United States including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. etc. etc. and most of London.

Retirement is about embracing one’s ability to negotiate personal time and space. It’s about setting one’s own rules –and ignoring them if you so choose. What it’s not about is ignoring the fact that our world is in unprecedented crises. While not allowing the multiplicity of upheavals, devastations, catastrophes, and tragedies to overwhelm my equilibrium, I choose to not look away. Every mass tragedy starts with one person. It does not escape me that it could be my own daughter or my son, or one of my grandchildren.

As I write this I am sitting in my favorite chair. My little portable air conditioner is working hard to keep my front room area pleasant. I am not hungry or thirsty or weary. What I am is quiet but not muted. Subdued but not upended. As long as I occupy space and draw breath I choose to give my heart to decency, compassion, empathy, and to be responsive in whatever way I am able.