Blog2.13.2021

 

Blog2.13.2021

 

Each pandemic week imposes more reasons to worry, to grieve for the dead, to maintain social distance, to think of the bright moments and unfortunate experiences in my life before 2020.  Some days weariness shrouds me, and I ask "Why the hell am I condemned to remember segments of time?"

 

It is a relief when a small poem drops like gentle rain ----

 

Yes.  It is summer.

Writers arriving and dead

still burn so fiercely.

 

It is a relief to ask

 

Which is more important ----knowing how to use the  Human Genome Project to map "tiny changes in the viral genome as I spreads" or knowing how to use digital humanities technologies to analyze the literary properties of political trash talk in American government?  From the perspective of narrative medicine , the scientific and the humanistic ought to exist in harmony.  From the perspective of blood and flesh experiences, common sense tells us the scientific is more important; to the extent that empirical aesthetics proves to be a matter of science, the scientific is more important.  Pursuing how best to minimize the threat of COVID-19 is ultimately more important for global welfare than engaging in endless debates about Congressional trash talk.  The debates raise one's blood pressure and increase one's sense that one's fellow citizens are the enemies within;  the best that can be said about the divisive debates is that they  necessitate scientific quests for remedies.

 

It is a relief to know that relief is often the trickster who betrays people with fantastic glee.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            2/13/2021 6:41:38 AM

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