The Most Heroic Thing We Can Do Is Stay Out of the Way
Social isolation often feels like the opposite of heroism. But now is the time to swallow our pride.
Nothing about quarantine feels heroic. Nothing about sitting in an empty apartment, checking the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 tracker every 10 minutes, feels like saving the world.
Nothing about the paper I’m writing, the pantry you’re stocking, the sale he’s completing, the workout she’s posting, the pizza they’re making — none of that feels heroic when our social media feeds are peppered with dramatic pictures of the USNS Comfort sailing into New York Harbor to provide medical services to a city desperate for help.
Seriously, though. This is an iconic picture. It’ll be in history books.
Except we desperately want to be part of it. For most of us, this pandemic has tapped at a foundational, altruistic urge to do our part. (Not all of us — don’t get me started on a Zoom call I had last week for work, in which one participant gleefully spoke about the huge…
