I’m avoiding writing an essay—or writing anything really—for the public because to me it doesn’t make sense to just start talking about something anymore. I am out of practice. There’s a protocol, now: we have to acknowledge a laundry list of universally experienced ills-at-hand before getting to the thing we came here to say. Oh 2020, how do I euphemize thee? Let me count the ways: “With everything going on right now,” “About on par for this year,” “Since March,” “These challenging, unprecedented times,” “Now more than ever,” “All things considered,” “Dumpster fire.” And so on and so forth.

One might simply risk getting to the thing one came here to say without all that prologuing. Possible side effects on your audience include: confusion, rage, being called out, being called in, relief. Is it a relief when the speaker acknowledges “everything that’s going on”? Is it a relief when they don’t, and for some blissful minutes you forget about it all? Perhaps more than anything this year is an exercise in discerning that fine line, that ever-moving target.

Everyone’s pandemic and political anxiety expresses itself in different ways. Mine is in keeping with my critical nature: I have much beef with everyone else’s pandemic and political anxiety. Really, I haven’t changed. If people were mad about something before, I was mad about the way they were mad about it. An effective if ego-driven tactic: it keeps me from feeling the way I feel about the thing at hand, and helps me feel superior. It is a double-whammy. I need some double-whamming in a year that hits this hard. Though as wise Thumper once said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” So I have become, here in my foxhole—or rabbithole I suppose—significantly quiet. And in the quietude you sometimes have the panic attack, the rock bottom of stir crazy, but you also sometimes find the nice.

God bless those who are keeping on keeping on. God bless those unabashedly putting out books, novels, stories, movies, email newsletters. God bless those stuttering through their Black Lives Matter statements on their websites. God bless those missing work. God bless those relieved to be free of some old burden, only to be staring some new larger demon dead in the eyes, its face rising over the horizon, eyes as big as suns. Holy the frontline workers. Holy the firefighters. Holy the masks. Holy the mini-slideshows on Instagram. Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul.

What do you do when the things you came here to say have all already been said? This question, for me, is not new to pandemic time. Is my job to amplify, affirm, educate inform, use my platform, as it were? What happens when rats are gnawing at the plywood, here, when termites nibble in? What happens if I lost my soapbox in the move? What happens when the answers are already out there? What kind of content is the act of listening, and will it sell? The true warriors: those shortcircuiting the need for sale.

Water is wet. Sky is blue. Grass green. Good good, and evil bad. Or is it, or is it, or is it? We’ve capitalized on the double-take, which we confuse for nuance. If you’re exhausted from deciphering an endless scroll of codes, that’s okay. Try and decide if the air around you feels warmer or cooler than your skin. Try and remember what it’s like to be immersed partway in water that’s the exact same temperature as the sky. Try and decide if there is any breeze brushing up against your hair, or if the room you’re in is almost still. Which of your appendages is warmest, coolest, most covered, least? Which side of your body is pressing more into the floor? This is the presence that shortcircuits. This is all you need to be a warrior. This is mortality, this is eternity. All that should be said was said.