Three years ago, we were lucky to visit Florence, Italy. We stayed in a convenient little AirBNB touted as being a former residence of Galileo. I was reminded of the story of Galileo today in two seemingly disparate instances.
In 1609, Galileo Galilei aimed a self-made spyglass to the heavens above his home in Florence and made a series of observations that would turn conventional understanding on its head. His innate curiosity led him to look at information from an unfettered perspective. His interest proved that the earth was not, in fact, the center of the solar system. Instead, it revolved around the sun. This tremendous scientific gift based on a common-sense interpretation of his observations was met with fear and scorn. It was in direct opposition to the perceived religious perspective of the day. As a result, he was placed under house arrest for the final ten years of his life. But, the naysayers did not dim the truth (pun intended). Galileo had measured the light of the sun and its reflection onto the planets as they circled. His transformative observation destroyed the illusion of contemporary conventional wisdom. Questioning universally accepted principles can create a painful bugbear for the questioner, often isolating the antagonist. So too, this happens to ourselves when our logical mind challenges our ego.
I was talking to a client yesterday about our self-imposed limitations. Whether physical or mental, we often pull back when we should lean into the pain at the onset of pain. Conventional wisdom is that pain has a purpose of protecting us. I beg to differ. Pushing beyond pain is how we preserve ourselves and grow.
My personal experience is that if you retreat from pain, then the limiting boundaries will advance. Generally speaking, this is true for the young, more psychologically and for the old, physically. We are more susceptible to psychological pain in our youth because our boundaries are ill-defined from inexperience. When we age, we challenge the encroaching physical limitations to hold off the ravages of time. Over 15 years ago, I was diagnosed with cervical vertebrae degradation. I’m convinced that my daily neck stretching to the point of pain has held off the advancement of limitations and even increased my flexibility. As we mature, we grow by continually operating beyond our comfort zone. These physical and emotional efforts never cease for those who choose to optimize their life experience.
In the second instance referenced above, I see that more people are challenging Covid conventional wisdom more and more each day. Over the weekend, worldwide protests against lockdowns and mandates erupted throughout the west. Additionally, former NYT journalist Bari Weiss on the Bill Maher show said this: “I’m done. I’m done with COVID,” she said, noting that early in the pandemic, she complied with every recommendation.
“I sprayed the Pringles cans that I bought at the grocery store, stripped my clothes off because I thought COVID would be on my clothes. I watched ‘Tiger King.’ I got to the end of Spotify. We all did it,” she told Maher. And when the vaccines were introduced, she pointed out that they were also sold as an off-ramp from government-mandated safeguards.“Then we were told … ‘You get the vaccine, and you get back to normal.’ And we haven’t gotten back to normal. And it’s ridiculous at this point … If you believe the science, you will look at the data we did not have two years ago. You will find out that cloth masks do not do anything. You will realize you can show your vaccine passport at a restaurant and still be asymptomatic and be carrying Omicron. And you will realize most importantly that this is going to be remembered by the younger generation as a catastrophic moral crime.”
This moment seems to be a crossing the rubicon moment. I take no position here other than to note the time and place as the world appears to pivot and press beyond the point of pain.
As is often the case, I connect things in times of silence and awareness. At 5:30 this morning, while running on the empty, snow-blanketed streets, I became intensely aware of my aliveness. It’s at these moments that we strip away the pain from fear.
Back when the pandemic had started, I was convalescing from major knee surgery. It’s incredible how you tend to have elevated levels of clarity when in the thick of a difficult situation. As the world began its collective freakout, I thought about the importance of perspective. I wrote a book chapter published about this very thing: Preparation, Perspective, Progress. At the time, I was taken aback at how many young people were overreacting. It seems that every young person was cleaning their grocery packaging and generally behaving irrationally to me. While on my run this morning, I had the epiphany that over the past 20 years since 9/11, we have been fed a tremendous amount of media that projects cataclysm. In that span, things have been relatively stable and secure. It’s no wonder that people, including myself, overreacted to Covid. Are things now oscillating back to normal? Are there Galileo’s out there under house arrest that are being believed? Are we, collectively, breaking through the pain to a new era of awareness.? Hmm, that is an optimistic thought. Let’s see.
More to come.
