Another week and more scientific data about Covid. Data to keep us better informed, data to help us make better decisions, data to reinforce our anxiety about how bad things really are in this country. For respite and a bit of salvation the internet provides endless offerings. Yoga and meditation, exercise, self-management, seminars and webinars, to help us emotionally navigate this world, to learn to accept with grace the new what is.
We cannot fight the virus, accepting this, and behaving responsibly is smart and makes good sense. It’s also the right thing to do. It is humbling and occasionally terrifying seeing our long-held assumptions about “the way things are” fall to the wayside. An organism invisible to our eyes, has destroyed much of we take for granted about modern life.
Acceptance is a good thing for ego-driven westerners. Facing the pandemic in this spirit is the yin of life’s yin and yang. But that is only half of the familiar black and white circle, the other side is yang energy. Yang energy implies action and taking control of our choices. Embodying yang energy is to live fully in the present, stripping away artifice and posture, grabbing onto this moment as if our lives depend upon it.
I’m talking about ferociously pursuing the life that you want, to the degree that you are able. Figuring out who you are, what you’re good at, and getting on with it. It’s easy for the older ones among us to have this stance, we’ve had years to screw up, make mistakes, and learn from them. But everything is condensed now, including growing up.
To be fully alive in the present, in these frightening and perilous times we can learn to live with acceptance and ferocity. We come to understand that we cannot influence or control what another person is going to see or not see, like or not like, about us. We can only do what we can do, like what we like, and be what we can be. (with homage to Sonia Nevis).