The great unmasking

Even better than the fun is the birth of a cultural moment. Many are gripped by the conviction that if they are working and their children’s schooling returns to normal, they do not want to go back to their old lifestyles. No more frenetic overscheduling and pointless travel. No more shallow social whirl. This is the moment to step back, be intentional and ask: What’s really important, and how should I focus on what matters? It’s a matter of ranking your loves and then making sure your schedule matches your rankings. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard once wrote... As we take off the physical masks, it seems important that we take off the psychological masks as well. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it is that we have more to fear from our inhibitions than from our vulnerabilities. More lives are wrecked by the slow and frigid death of emotional closedness than by the short and hot risks of emotional openness. All around I see people determined to undo what Covid tried to do to us. Covid isolated us, but I see people thinking about how they can replace social distance with social closeness and social courage. I’m hoping to practice what a friend calls “aggressive friendship,” being the one who issues the invitations, reaches out first.