There are two approaches to dealing with the current uncertainty about what it means to Get Back To Work in the waning grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. Paramount among these is the loose grip on just what the landscape of work will be compared to what was formerly in play. One tactic is to take a watchful waiting strategy, where a highly reserved posture about initiative dominates; it’s a heavy foot on the brakes to minimize making things worse while giving time for more clarity to appear from the efforts of others. The alternative is to carefully consider the known realities amidst the uncertainty, and to use those as the entry points to move forward.
These illustrate the difference between fear and hope.
Fear sees the calamity and chaos, and is paralyzed by the vast, unending list of things that can’t be known.
Hope accepts there are uncertainties (known unknowns), but declares the roster of “known knowns” upon which decisions and strategies have always been based, and plots decisive moves forward towards the vision of where such acts can lead.
Go. Go with conviction and humility. Go together, supporting shared progress. Go to contribute and to innovate. Go with hope.
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Footnote. In the second book of John Keat’s 1818 romance Endymion — which begins with the iconic line, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever” — Cupid addresses his beloved, Psyche,
O known Unknown! from whom my being sips
Such darling essence, wherefore may I not
Be ever in these arms? in this sweet spot
Pillow my chin forever? ever press
These toying hands and kiss their smooth excess?
Why not forever and for ever feel
That breath about my eyes? Ah, thou wilt steal
Away from me again, indeed, indeed —
Thou wilt be gone away, and wilt not heed
My lonely madness. Speak, my kindest fair!
“Known Unknown” is also a beautifully succinct way of describing the inherent tension of romance: the notion that, no matter how intimate you may be with your beloved, something at that person’s core will always remain ineffable, separate, mysterious.
[excerpted from Rumsfeld’s Romanticism. By Nina Shen Rastogi, Slate FEB 11, 2011]
