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| An Anti-Virus (video). Tracing paper, images cut from February and March 2020 copies of Sunday New York Times |
COVID-19 has quickly and
profoundly illustrated the extent to which environments, livelihoods, and even
microbiomes are globally-entangled and mutually-dependent; the health of one hinges,
directly or indirectly, on the health of all.
Symbiosis is a term used in biology to describe cooperation between different species for shared benefit—lichens, a composite of algae and fungus, for example. Certain species of figs, wasps, and the parasites living within wasp guts are mutually dependent; each can exist only in relation to the others.
While the microorganisms that dwell within humans are not necessarily specific to Homo sapiens, they are so abundant that approximately half “our” genetic material does not belong to “us,” but to microbes that play vital roles in nutrient absorption, immunity, and cognitive function. Microbiology reveals that human beings, at the same time that we are exquisitely unique individuals, we are also dynamic meta-organisms, cooperative communities teaming with life.
The microbes within us arrive from all around, gleaned from food, air, soil, and water. A bite of apple grown in New Zealand, a potato grown in Peru, a tomato grown in one’s own backyard. A breath of air that arrived on a breeze from the Sahara, captured and imparted to fellow riders in a subway car in New York, Paris, or Hong Kong. Aspects of seemingly distant people and places are constantly becoming parts of our infinitely individual, yet paradoxically multitudinous, selves. Fellow humans, other-than-humans, and even that which is not universally considered “alive” (a water molecule, for example) all become parts of what make us “us.”
COVID-19 brings the question of boundaries between beings starkly into focus: if we are all constantly exchanging biological (and other) material on a global scale, then perceived “others” are, in tangible ways, extensions of ourselves. One possible remedy, then—not only for the problem of the current pandemic but for other catastrophes-in-progress—is to care for everything and everyone as if this is the case.
Perhaps this collective realization is a conceptual anti-virus with the radically beneficial, evolutionarily advantageous effect of driving those it touches into states of deep love and respect for the world and its inhabitants. Symptoms may include increased empathy, sense of wonder, and desire to be of service to others. This contagion becomes active simply by imagining it.
Symbiosis is a term used in biology to describe cooperation between different species for shared benefit—lichens, a composite of algae and fungus, for example. Certain species of figs, wasps, and the parasites living within wasp guts are mutually dependent; each can exist only in relation to the others.
While the microorganisms that dwell within humans are not necessarily specific to Homo sapiens, they are so abundant that approximately half “our” genetic material does not belong to “us,” but to microbes that play vital roles in nutrient absorption, immunity, and cognitive function. Microbiology reveals that human beings, at the same time that we are exquisitely unique individuals, we are also dynamic meta-organisms, cooperative communities teaming with life.
The microbes within us arrive from all around, gleaned from food, air, soil, and water. A bite of apple grown in New Zealand, a potato grown in Peru, a tomato grown in one’s own backyard. A breath of air that arrived on a breeze from the Sahara, captured and imparted to fellow riders in a subway car in New York, Paris, or Hong Kong. Aspects of seemingly distant people and places are constantly becoming parts of our infinitely individual, yet paradoxically multitudinous, selves. Fellow humans, other-than-humans, and even that which is not universally considered “alive” (a water molecule, for example) all become parts of what make us “us.”
COVID-19 brings the question of boundaries between beings starkly into focus: if we are all constantly exchanging biological (and other) material on a global scale, then perceived “others” are, in tangible ways, extensions of ourselves. One possible remedy, then—not only for the problem of the current pandemic but for other catastrophes-in-progress—is to care for everything and everyone as if this is the case.
Perhaps this collective realization is a conceptual anti-virus with the radically beneficial, evolutionarily advantageous effect of driving those it touches into states of deep love and respect for the world and its inhabitants. Symptoms may include increased empathy, sense of wonder, and desire to be of service to others. This contagion becomes active simply by imagining it.
