Emergency Pragmatism

I’m reflecting on something that has become clear in the Low Pandemic that I did not anticipate during the High Pandemic, which has bummed me out, but now I’m realizing it’s nobody’s fault and just needs to be worked with.

In the Lockdown Era, there was little difference between the questions “How do we rebuild society?” and “What even are human beings?”, and the interactions between people who were all socially isolated but focused more on one or the other of those questions were fruitful.

But now that lockdown is over, and the issue of rebuilding society has been forced by the overwhelming mandate to “return” to “normal,” a lot of the lines of productive discourse I had a couple years ago have gone dead.

I’m working on implementing imperfect society-rebuilding solutions because I have to, to keep things together for those around me, and “What even are human beings?” discourse is a luxury I can’t afford.

But those still having that conversation still need to figure it out.

So much of religion / spirituality / mysticism / magic / whatever — as a hobby or niche or fixation or Special Thing — is about experimentation with theories of reality that lead one on a path of real growth, but on almost unspeakably subtle level, and that is something you basically can’t do well without comparing notes with others doing the same.

I definitely needed some adjustment on that subtle level during the High Pandemic, and I got it, and found community around it, and am grateful for that.

But my life has moved into a phase of sort of like… emergency pragmatism? About religious and spiritual life at the community level, and there’s no way to solve any of the problems that constitute living this life if the Discourse Wind Resistance at the “What even are we?” level is greater than, like, a gentle breeze on the face.

We can’t stop for that. What we are is either a functional community or non-functional one. And when we become non-functional, we need a fix immediately.

I want to support people wrestling with very deep questions, because society needs them, and people who have never wrestled with those questions are killing us all.

My mostly-starting-to-be-functional IRL community of course includes people exerting much effort on this wrestling. I’m in ongoing relationship with them and want to help them find useful provisional answers.

But I have to come up with a way of saying, “At some point, you kinda just have to, like, go with it” that isn’t dismissive.