The Human Beyond the Machine

"We can no longer say the impacts of coronavirus are only beginning to be felt. The beginning of all this is over: we’re in the thick of it now." – Myles Udland

"It’s like the event horizon of a black hole, where suddenly everything that made perfect sense to every quantitative model, every pairs trade, every scalp trade – it all made sense until we got to the edge of that system, and suddenly everything started to crumble. That’s the exact point where we need to stop relying entirely on these models and machines, and allow human beings to step back into the market." – Sean Debotte on financial markets

There's a point at which things stop making sense to the systems and routines we've built. And that typically occurs at the edge of what we deem possible. To most, the effects of Covid-19 on daily life were only a fiction story. A zombie movie. A pandemic book. An alien invasion. But over the past two weeks, those impossible storylines have grown oddly parallel to our reality.

We stay in our homes. We distance from society. We scavenge for toilet paper. But now, two weeks into quarantine, we're beginning to grow accustomed to the change. We are now immersed. Like it or not, the systems we created prior do not exist as the safety nets we'd hoped them to be. The past two weeks have crushed their reliability. In truth, our systems were only made for what’s possible. They weren’t made for the black hole, rule bending nature of global pandemic and quarantine. And neither were our precious routines.

Routines are creatures mourned heavily when they die. But all routines must die at some point, lest we think them immortal gods and hope in their sure blessings. Systems, machines, and routines all have their place but we must collectively remember that all of these creations were made by humans and contain the limitations of their creators. They are not eternal and treat us poorly when relied on as such. 

And so, in this time of new routine and new normal be awake to that which is not routine. The breadcrumbs of eternal things will be found there. Be human, the way Jesus was human. Open up to interruption, like Jesus opened himself to interruption from the sick and dying. His destiny as a human was found in the interruptions. Go on adventures, the way Jesus went on adventures. No one walks on water while standing on the land. 

Remember you are but dust and so are your routines and systems. But God is spirit. He’s wind.  And the wind can carry the dust much farther than dust can carry itself. Be willing to wander. Be willing to do things out of order and find peace in trust not schedule. It’s there we’ll find sudden grace in these trying times.