Print Study/Drawing from The British Museum Collection
"I wanted to be certain to get my spurious statistics straight."

I rarely publish two PureSchmaltz Blog posts in a single day. This morning, though, I spaced out my usual intention to review the receding week's posts before moving on. I couldn't imagine any elegant way to simply append the following into what I'd already published, a screed on UnCountabiles. I'll call this review UnCountables(2) to strongly suggest just how meaningless social media use statistics seem. Not that I denigrate a single one of the six hundred-some unique page views that you, my generous readers, left to me this past week. I praise every one as the miracle it certainly seems. Still, I can't quite distill any great wisdom from the numbers alone. I suspect that these counts hardly hint at the value these postings hold, especially to me. I'm grateful for every even disinterested peek their presence attracts.

On the eventual grand list of weeks, the week leaving this morning will very likely stand near the top of the upper quadrant of Helluva Weeks. We think we might have experienced a few before, but we crossed over into uncharted territory this past week. We might need to recalibrate the whole measurement scale to make room for what's coming next. WhatNow? continues to seem the ideal series name. I spent the week poking sticks into darkness and I figure everyone else did as well. Helluva Weeks tend to unfold like that. Left with few fresh experiences, I fell back into describing how life felt from within this ever-more frighteningly familiar isolation.

I began the writing week musing on SimpleEconomics, where I reconsidered moral hazard in the face of immediate need. Our mutual dependencies might run much deeper than any political conviction metastasized into moral certitude.

I next reported on a surprisingly little known phenomenon, what I have long held to be a fairly inescapable fact, that whomever's designated as in charge, it's actually always TheProject'sManaging. The context gets final say. The unique combination of present conditions determines more than any authoritarian or even communitarian plan. Designated leaders aware that they're never actually in change seem to fare better than those who aren't aware of this fact.

Then, I reported on one of the absolutely silly ways I've chosen to protect myself during this pandemic, through HeardImmunity. I listen for clues and hints which, at least in my imagination, might render me safer. Old Wives' Tales, New Wives' Tales, I'm vulnerable to any whispered anything, while feeling immunized by whatever I'm listening to.

While maintaining my watchfulness, I realized that I lack the sensitivity to sense the presence of anything I'm so watchful for, just another curious contradiction in pandemic life. We're all BlindWatchmen, and maybe we always were BlindWatchmen. This humbling insight provides no really good reason not to stay on watchful alert, though.

I noticed the fresh Pace of life with almost everyone ordered home for the foreseeable future, foreseeable roughly translating into meaning 'cannot possible see yet.' Our response to the pandemic has slowed everything way down, an externality which might be a whole lot better for me and society than it at first seems.

I noticed while sheltering in place that my future seems to have evaporated on me. My usually orienting horizon, however notional it always might have been, went missing. My EventHorizoning had sort of shut down for want of a bare ounce of certainty, which of course remains on backorder for now.

I finished this writing week considering Emergence in Emergence-y. I pursue things that can't really qualify as things using techniques only proven useful when pursuing actual things. How very strange and utterly disorienting this emerging world seems.

Next Friday, I'll try to remember to incorporate my retrospective into my usual daily posting. I want to be certain to get my spurious statistics straight. Later this morning, I'll be convening my now almost usual PureSchmaltz Friday Zoom Chat. I hope to see you on that with me. Until then, I'll keep writing, you keep reading, and we can both try our hardest to stay safe until ordinary times emerge again. Thank you for following along as witness.

©2020 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #WhatNow?, #PureSchmaltz