Over the past year, there was so much to be afraid of that fear itself grew fatigued. Was the solitude of lockdown passing into a new systemic withdrawal? Or were we practicing turning our blind eye to kids on the streets with guns?
Nothing felt as eerie then as the bourgeois comfort that now at last, double vaccinated, we might be getting back to normal. As if there was a proven “we,” let alone any structure of normality available. As if we had not learned yet that the phantom known as our norm had been a deluding pipe-dream for so long. As if the panoramas of fear had not taught us that hope and our future were Ponzi schemes. As if we didn’t know in our bones that the precious “it” — our culture — might be ending, so should we (quietly and discreetly) get whatever we could while there was still time?
So even among the pursuers of our liberties, there could be a secret plan of acquiring tactful guns, living on high ground, putting together a goodies satchel of Proust, Musil, Parker, and Mahler, and stockpiling toilet paper.