It was at around this time last year when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a mysterious Coronavirus-related pneumonia in China. For the intervening year this “mysterious” virus spread around the globe.
2020, as those of us who survived it can attest, was rife with interruptions to our lives. Our efforts to slow the virus’ spread long enough to develop treatments and vaccines have also interrupted basic human interactions like smiles and scowls, kisses and fist bumps, dancing and messing around.
With tens of millions of cases and millions of COVID deaths, 2020 was the year of interruption, even at warp speed. We could look back at 2020 for its tragedies and frustrations: the audacity of crooked elites, foreign hacking of our national information infrastructure, re-exposure of deep-rooted racial injustice, a toxic political season highlighted by more lies and strains on our Republic, businesses shuttering: all on top of a deadly global pandemic. The viability of the modern human species has been threatened.
In 1968, another year of upheaval, religious institutions focused on threats to procreation, specifically upon coitis interruptus. Pope Paul VI’s “On Human Life” described it as “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation.” The “pull out method” remains a sin against the intended fertility and viability of mankind and the Catholic Church itself, even today.
What, then, of 2020’s collective prophylaxis – masks and isolation – in which we engaged last year? What sins against humanity have we prevented (or traded for) by proactively withdrawing to our safest places: isolated from society, withdrawn from fellowship?
While we could decry the interruptions of 2020 – the “Great Pulling Out,” as it were – as detrimental to our national fabric, I optimistically interpret the annus interruptus as one of the greatest wholesale experiments in America’s history. We can take stock in what we’ve learned about technology, social interaction, commerce, our institutions, our Republic and ourselves.
From our masks, we’ve learned to smile with our eyes; to be expressive and see into others’ concern. We’ve learned to listen more intently and to speak more clearly.
From our scientists, we’ve found that the processes of researching, hypothesizing, testing and observing are drivers of rapid change, driven by passion, cooperation and a little healthy competition. We also learned that these processes are just as valuable when disproven as when they are when reified.
From the sorrow of losing our parents and grandparents, we’ve learned to value the lives and legacies of the greatest generation. From 2020’s summer of protest, we learned that – while also fighting for life – we can still fight for social justice and against systemic, institutional inequities.
From our entrepreneurs, educators and healthcare professionals we’ve learned that when faced with challenges, they can innovate, adapt and drive meaningful change throughout a fully integrated economy.
From the November elections, we learned that greater suffrage is better than less, that an imperfect Constitution is more important than a popular authoritarian and that American democracy can be strained without breaking.
I’ve learned that saying “I’m sorry” is just as powerful as saying “I’m right,” and that “thank you” is more powerful still. I’ve also learned that my optimism may expose my (self-righteous) privilege and that there are many fellow humans who have felt forcibly (and thoroughly unsatisfyingly) anus-effed who are ready for it to end. We have friends and neighbors from whom we’ve felt evolutionarily – genetically, not merely socially – distanced.
I know that there are those whose interpretation of the annus interruptus is a little less optimistic. For them, just as archeologists and taxonomists created homo sapien sapiens to demarcate Neanderthals from modern man, I offer the annus interruptus interruptus.
I can empathize with a reality in which the cynics are correct and that there was little good to come from a 2020 of mask wearing, social distancing, unemployment, crushing government debt, mass death, toxic politics, strains on the institutions of democracy, civil unrest and rapid technological change.
Regardless of whether we mark the beginning of the interruptus at the 2016 election or at the 2019 WHO announcement about the virus, the annus interruptus interruptus, marks the disruption of the disruption. Mankind will be better for the lessons we’ve learned.
If you are among those who feel morally and physically superior to the homo sapiens who co-ruled the planet alongside “progressive mankind” during that period, then claim 2021 as your annus interruptus interruptus. Through the future lenses of 2020 hindsight, we will find in the interruptus interruptus that – like the (misguided, inaccurate depiction as) big-headed, less articulate, knuckle draggers who walked alongside “modern man” 100,000 years ago – we sapien sapiens have learned from the interruptus, not only who we are not. We know better who we are – who we should be.
We also know that Neanderthals were stocky, muscular, and strong; they excelled at hunting and made complex tools suited to their time. There is no doubt that Neanderthals were an intelligent species. With scientific hindsight, we now know that they were far more intelligent than their frailer sapien sapien neighbors may have thought at the time.
Whether you’re among the optimists or the cynics, remember 2020 for the lessons from the interruptus: smile more with your eyes, listen harder and speak more clearly.
Embrace the interruptus interruptus: love and appreciate those who, though they may see the world from a different perspective, have plenty to teach us even as we integrate their best traits: even as they evolve into extinction.
Jason Leclerc, #RadicalCentrist, has published two collections of short stories/essays/poetry and also regularly contributes to the Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and Authenticity Magazine.
