The Quarantine of the human spirit

Written on March 28,2020

Almost 50% of the human population on planet earth is in some sort of lockdown at the time of writing this. Healthcare workers across the world are waking up every morning to fight against an invisible enemy they know very little of (At least in Normandy, we knew we were fighting the Nazis)

Doctors and nurses are writing their wills, Sanitation workers are working overtime, Migrant workers have no place to stay and are walking hundreds of Kilometres back home, While the middle classes of the world are bored and are nominating each other for Instagram challenges.

Humanity is doomed, and it should be.

Any sentient species that is more bothered about toilet paper, than its survival, should be vented to the vacuum of space. Any species, that even has one specimen, that would stock 15000 bottles of hand sanitizers only to sell them later at a profit, deserves a meteor or two.

A portrait of extremes

Any species that even has one specimen, who will knowingly break quarantine of a pandemic to attend football matches or weddings, deserves the rising oceans and the melting glaciers. Any species that has landlords telling doctors and nurses to vacate because they might be infected deserve being reset back to the stone age

The resilience of the human spirit is a rare thing. Like a feeble candle in the wind. It has been tested many times across history and now, is one such time. Will it survive? or Will it be extinguished due to the panic of downtrodden sheep that is more concerned about its social media profiles and its stocked refrigerators over the common good.

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Anne Frank was born as a rich, upper-middle-class kid, whose exposure never extended beyond her similarly rich and cultured friends of her childhood. She first lived in Frankfurt and then moved to Amsterdam. Her rich European life continued undisturbed till 6th July 1942.

Being a Jew, her family was asked to report to a Nazi workcamp. Unlike the millions of other Jews who had no other choice, her father had the means to prepare for this by building a secret annex in his office building, where he and his family lived with one other family.

Anne frank. A teenager in isolation

They lived there for two years. Not stepping out of their 450 Sq. feet apartment. Eight people. Two years. A Quarantine of sorts. They were aided by sympathizers and friends of Anne’s father for the duration, Food, supplies, magazines, gifts and so on. When they did finally exit the apartment, it was under handcuffs as their location was given as an anonymous tip to the Nazi police. The Entire family spent the rest of their lives at the Nazi work camp and Anne died of disease and exhaustion at the workcamp when she was 15.

The world war was, of course, a time of extraordinary cruelty and millions more indeed had much more of a cruel ending than Anne’s. Why is Anne’s plight any more special? It is. Because it highlights the common thread of human spirit that emerges and pops out randomly. Like how cruelty and misery occur randomly with no explanation, so do excellence and the resilience of human spirit.

For nothing else explains the Diary of Anne Frank.

The diary in which she chose to write about her life. For in the words she wrote, she was not a rich teenager complaining about having to be inconvenienced. While she was hunted and forced to hide, for no fault of her own, when the world targeted to persecute her, after one more day of hiding noiselessly in a dark annex, this 14-year-old girl wrote in her diary :

“ I don’t think of all the misery but the beauty that still remains”

While she heard day after day of deaths, hangings and more bad news coming from the outside world and was coming to terms with her reality, she wrote :

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

She was not a kid who had millions of followers, aiming to pose as a strong #survivor. She did not have a PR agent telling to play the part. She did not have an agenda. This was a girl, writing into paper, under candlelight, the plight of her life.

At the first sign of irritation and foiling of our plans, most of our reactions are to get bitter and vile. “How can the world not bend to my will or how can the world do this to me”. After seeing her world fall apart and after coming to terms with the very real possibility of her life ending, she wrote :

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.”

Human spirit in paper form

Humanity did not survive because we were more intelligent or smarter than other species. As George Carlin once famously said, “Who decided that we are better than chickens?”. It is also not because of some cosmic right we had over our fellow beings but because we were and are collective beings.

While we are free to do what we want and need, our social order inevitably focuses us to work for the collective and common good — Survival of the species.

There are many times we have come perilously close to disappearing off the map. One such time was in the middle ages.

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During the years 1350–1600, an estimated 150 million people died of the Plague. Nicknamed Black death. Estimates reveal that the initial wave in the 1350s wiped out 50–65% of the human population in Europe.

It was a black wave of death, with entire cities dying in a matter of days and weeks. In a world devoid of technology, science, and education, this pestilence was seen as many things. A divine punishment sent by the gods or as a disease carried by immigrants and handicapped people. Entire militias were formed to identify potential plague carriers and kill their families. Houses were burnt with diseased people along with their families as it was believed that touching them spread the disease. Individual burials were given up due to the sheer number of bodies piling up. Deep vertical pits were built during the day, piled with bodies overnight, covered in the morning and new holes dug up during the day again.

By the way, the word ‘quarantine’ originates from the Italian phrase “Quaranta Giorni” which translates into “space of 40 days”. That was the period of time ships from plague-stricken countries had to wait outside the Venetian harbor. The so-called quarantine we are now inconvenienced by is troubling many of us. This after near-perfect information through technology.

Imagine yourself in a small village in the middle of England in the 1600s. Imagine yourself to be the village leader of 300–400 people in this quaint and small village. After months and years of hearing rumors about the black monster, the invisible plague that kills cities and other horror stories, imagine yourself waking up to hear the news of one of your village members dying of the plague. What would you do?

That is what happened to the small town of Eyam in England in 1666. After an almost overnight eruption in disease, the villagers were panicking and were preparing to flee. William Mompesson, the Head of the Church called for a meeting of all the villagers.

After assessing the damage and after noting that almost every house or street had one or more cases of the disease and after noting that they had almost no medicine to treat this, he came to a decision. He told the bewildered onlookers that the only solution is to lock themselves in a village-wide quarantine and die inside their village. As their village was the link between south of England (London-where the plague was rampant) and the north of England.

He informed that this quarantine is what God would have wanted and this is the only way that nearby villagers and families will not be affected. The villagers while hesitant realized the safety of their friends and relatives (who resided in the nearby villages) depended on them. Moreover, they did not want to be treated like lepers and beaten by the same friends and families in the nearby villages who they traded or were in contact with. Dignity in death was a phrase used in one of William’s sermons

In June of 1666, the village went into quarantine with a stone wall erected around the town. Food from nearby villages was kept in a well half a mile away from the villages, which was picked up at asynchronous times.

From the next month, the village was averaging 5 deaths a day.

One Elizabeth Hancock buried her eight children and her husband in a span of eight days. She never left the quarantine.

William Mompesson’ s wife died in July. He never left the quarantine.

August came and the spread of the disease slowed and then it stopped. By the end of August, the quarantine was lifted. Of the 400 people who were living before the disease. 110 were alive. 110 people who never left the quarantine

Unfortunately for every instance of Anne frank and Eyam village, there are a million more instances of selfishness and pig-headedness. That is the human condition.

Calling ourselves Civilized, having fancy houses, modern gadgets and Sophisticated social media profiles will mean absolutely nothing if we resort to our primal and basal instincts. Relatives who were convinced about the healing nature of a few Yogis a month back are now tracking the street by street spread of the disease, hushing in conspiratorial tones and inciting harm against possibly infected people.

Friends who were making jokes on Chinese people eating bats are now spreading rumors that range from stupid to dangerous (Biowarfare to UFOs and whatnot). Scared, Entitled, bored and miserable. A unique combination of moods that prevail across the collective hive mind of our society today.

Fear of our lives is a good thing. It will save us. That collective fear is what enables this big a human population to be under lockdown. But to sit and use this as a vent for discrimination or racism or ignorance is beyond deplorable.

Let us get this straight. Most of us are going to get this disease. or the next one. In our lifetime. Some of us will die. Maybe many. Life goes on.

What doesn’t and cannot go on is the casual discrimination being ramped up against the people affected: People who get the disease, the healthcare workers, sanitation workers, other staff and migrant labor.

Every Major disease or natural disaster has always been followed by economic, artistic and scientific renaissances. Davinci to Galileo to newton to Columbus that we know of now were formed and shaped by the diseases and disasters they faced in their childhood and lives. For the first time, we are at serious risk of coming out dumber and angrier and worser out of this crisis.

Can we still call ourselves civilized if we are as susceptible to rumors and misinformation as we were in the middle ages? The biggest impact this virus will have on us is not only the deaths and the economic impact but also showing us clearly how close to barbarism we actually are.

To all the middle-class adults who are out there spreading WhatsApp rumors and engaging in panic-driven mania, please see the kids in your family who are locked down with you.

You are going to set the moral bar that they will refer to for the rest of their life. You can either teach them to be virtuous, generous, kind and resilient like Anne frank / William Mompesson or you can see them grow up to discriminate against fellow human beings

In the coming days, it will feel bleak and that there is little hope. Don’t question or critique anyone else on what they can or should be doing.

The resilience of the human spirit is a rare thing. Like a feeble candle in the wind. Awaiting to be reignited from time to time. From generation to generation.

It will be kindled by people who will ask the question “what can I do” in the face of tragedy and adversity instead of “why me” and “what about me”.

Stay safe. Stay inside.

More importantly, Be Kind and Considerate.

For your sake and also to protect the human spirit from the disease of ignorance and cruelty