It Almost Certainly Is Going To Be A Pandemic

Two enormous factors converging. You never know what will cause the perfect storm. We can see the risk landscape intensifying though:

*** The constitutional government of the US is in question. It's stable right now; kind of. Day-to-day life in the US has not changed significantly for most. In that sense, things are still stable. Lots of despondence, feeling helpless, anger, sadness, etc. in the US on the side that's in the majority. An increasingly eroded government, budgets, and regulations while money shifts to the very wealthy add risk for the masses. That's us.

*** The second factor is this potential coronavirus pandemic. I'm pretty stunned that this wording is out today. In the New York Times. Excerpt: “'It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,' said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. 'But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.'"

Federalism will help in state and local governments with strong, well-funded public health organizations. Haha! Kidding! If only it were funny. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a well-funded emergency or public health organization. There's never enough funding to be as prepared as we could be for The Catastrophe. Budget cuts over many years + the recession have taken a toll. National initiatives that should have been developed haven't been. Etc. We're not where we could be. But we *do* have some stuff in place. A lot of it's pretty good. It's mostly good because there are really really really good people working in these areas who make stuff work even despite all of the challenges.

Basically, strong-ish state and local programs will help where there are increasingly gaps on the federal side. Including decreasing staff, institutional knowledge, science knowledge, systems, monitoring, budgets, programs, and sanity. Notably, the increasingly propaganda-ist nature of the federal government will present a specific and complicating factor in a public health emergency assuming this escalates.

An actual pandemic will bring cascading impacts. To the economy, to the just-in-time supply chain that much of the world relies on, and to critical infrastructure. We live in a world of interdependencies. Government in the US at all levels has done at least some work on this. Again, it's not where it could be. It's not nothing, either. There are also public-private partnerships, resilience, and disaster preparedness organizations that have talked about all of this kind of stuff.

Wow, that's a lot of potential chaos!

Yes. Yes it is.

We're in an era where a lot of potential chaos seems to be on the horizon pretty persistently.

Advice

Take some time and get anchored. Grounded. If you're feeling like your life is out of control, and there is anything you can do to find some calm and some anchor points... do it. Set some other things aside and get your home and your family, neighbors, friends, etc. set up with a bit more stability than you might currently have.

Check out stuff you can do to be more prepared in case things do get rough. I would recommend not going the full bunker-prepper-route. Most of us can't afford it, for starters.

Here's what I would say. And I do mean this. And I say it over and over and over and over and over.

If things get really rough, we're only going to get through it with good people. Knowing good people, knowing your neighbors, having good people in your life, having people you can trust, being a person that others can trust, having some resilience, helping others be resilient, not freaking out, not panicking, and being able to solve really complicated problems in the midst of chaos are all things that are needed if things get rough.

Short Version / TL;DR

Have community. Grow it. Join it. Find it. Build it.

Get resilient.

You can read all of the preparedness / prepper / catastrophe / pandemic / increasing chaos / major-huge-big-disaster stuff you want, but I don't think you're going to find better realistic and long-term advice than those 3 things. Also, being able to *not* panic and *to* solve problems = super useful.

In a disaster, or a pandemic, or, say, an unstable government... people are going to be part of the problem, or they're going to be part of the solution. We may all take turns in those roles; depending on our situations.

If you have a choice though (and not everyone will), you can choose to be a part of the many solutions. Of finding a way forward.

And, I would say, we probably have a lot more choices than what look immediately obvious. It's time to look hard. And to keep looking hard. Things will evolve. Constantly.

A lot of people are going to need help if things get tough. They're going to need *our* help. We'll be better ready for it if we get our heads around it now.

We do it together. That's how we get it done.

This website was created for this kind of moment; for a great transformation.  We have free tools + info that can help people + organizations.  We hold virtual events.  We do coaching at inclusive pricing rates; we do consulting & training for organizations.  We help each other navigate disruption & find ways forward.
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This post was originally published on the founder's personal Facebook page here.
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