You Belong to a Herd

"Herd" has been a big word in public conversation the past year, almost always in the context of "herd immunity"--the Covid-19 pandemic won't really be over until we establish herd immunity as a group, society, nation, globe. The quickest and surest way to do that is through vaccinations, which many are resisting, so we're not actually sure if we'll get there. So it keeps getting discussed.

I started to name this post "You Are Part of a Herd," but then I realized You Belong to a Herd more fully captures my meaning. Belonging implies a sense of ownership, of obligation. Unless you are a hermit, you are part of a herd whether you want to be or not. It's inescapable. And necessary; humans are social creatures at our very cores. And, whether you want to or not, you benefit from your herd so, morally, you have responsibilities as a member of your herd. Obligations. You belong.

I've recently come across the idea twice from Native American sources. From my Facebook feed, shared last post as well:

The single biggest thing I learned was from an indigenous elder of Cherokee descent, Stan Rushworth, who reminded me of the difference between a Western settler mindset of "I have rights" and an indigenous mindset of "I have obligations." Instead of thinking that I am born with rights, I choose to think that I am born with obligations to serve past, present, and future generations, and the planet herself.

And from the book The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth, ed. by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson, in the piece "The Way of the Anigiduwagi" by Traci Sorell.

Achievements in school or at work are never more important than caring about other living creatures.

Everyone has a role in a family, in a clan, in a community, and in a nation. You know this. You are being raised with a Cherokee worldview that recognizes that we are responsible for the well-being of those around us and the world in which we live. As you listen to others, you'll find that some are continually degraded through language, stereotypes, jokes, and attitudes that portray them as lesser, worthy of being victimized, and not seen as the sacred beings you have been raised to know them to be. Those words lead to harmful actions. Call out any one suggesting or acting otherwise. We all carry this daily responsibility.

The Talk is a compilation of pieces by various writers sharing what they want to say to their children about being part of their minority group.

I don't always succeed, but I do my best to approach life with a similar attitude. Succeed or not, what I'm thinking about today is the ways our herds influence us and we influence our herds. Because influence is a crucial part of belonging. Competition vs. cooperation is floating around in the background of my thoughts, but I think if I had to put an easy label on what's at the forefront the one that's most accurate is peer pressure.

I've shared before this project I'm part of as part of my work at my library. It's rewarding work. We just wrapped up our efforts for this school year, and one member sent the rest of us an email sharing her gratitude:

I’ve been marinating in gratitude since, well, since the [project's] year began, but especially since Tuesday. 

Last year the staff leadership book was Dream Teams and [this project] is precisely that. Generously and without reservation you each bring your gifts to this work and it’s uplifting to be in your company. A_____'s calm, thoughtful guidance, R_____'s honesty and clear-headedness, L_____'s insightful perspective, E_____'s sensitivity to the viewpoint of the teens and original ideas, [Degolar's] big brain, clear writing and organized thought process, K_____'s ability to get to the very heart of whatever we are discussing and say it – and see it – clearly,  and J_____'s steady, cool, input and timely sense of humor are the stuff dream teams are made of. And D_____, working closely with you to plan the symposium has been a delight. You are patient, kind , smart and thoughtful. 

It is fulfilling on every level to be a part of this group You and your dedicated hard work made the year of virtual events and the symposium much more than the sum of its parts.

One of us (not me) responded:

You're making me tear up again ❤️  

There's no way to follow up a thank you such as yours so I won't even try.  This experience has been one of the best!  I never thought that when I applied to [the library] that I'd have opportunities such as this, and why people have put such faith in me is beyond my understanding.  I can only hope I was able to be a partner who was half as valued to you as you all were to me on this incredible journey- especially you, M_____.  This has impacted my life in so many ways.

Thank you to ALL of you!

My sentiments are similar. My point in sharing is to show how we all positively influence each other. I can only hope I was able to be a partner who was half as valued to you as you all were to me. We see all of the other members of the team as capable, talented, and high-achieving, and we constantly strive to measure up to our perceptions of each other. We want to be good enough to not let the team down. There's no sense of competition because it's a cooperative venture, yet we create an atmosphere that pushes us to be better--in a completely positive, supportive, fulfilling way. It's a cycle of positive peer pressure.

You might think this is a unique, or at least unusual, situation, but in my experience that's not true. This has been my overwhelming experience in groups large and small during my nearly 20 years with this organization. I've had the same experience in other settings as well. Yes, I've also experienced the opposite, groups that bring everyone down to a lowest common denominator level. But my point is that it doesn't have to be that way. Many people resist the idea of belonging to a herd because they fear it limits their freedom, independence, and personal responsibility, and might bring out the worst in everyone. I relish the idea of belonging to a herd because I see how we can all be stronger and better together--and I don't just see it in theory, I regularly experience it.

That experience, I'm sure, positively impacts my support of socialist policies. Many worry those who benefit from such policies will view it as a free ride; I expect them to benefit with a sense of responsibility to their herd and an obligation to respond in kind however they are able. That's as much as I'm getting into politics at the moment, though. Instead, more about herds.

These thoughts are running through my head at the same time as I'm playing with the ideas from a book I just finished: A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures by Eric Schwitzgebel. It's a collection of short essays, many of which he first wrote as blog posts or online articles. I first came across him through the title essay, which I shared last year in The Decrees of Bartholomew Sprout.

How to Tell If You’re a Jerk

I submit that jerkitude should be accepted as a category worthy of scientific study in its own right. The word “jerk” is apt and useful. It captures a very real phenomenon that no other concept in psychology quite does. Jerks are people who culpably fail to appreciate the perspectives of the people around them, treating others as tools to be manipulated or fools to be dealt with, rather than as moral and epistemic peers. To be a jerk is to be ignorant in a certain way—ignorant of the value of others, ignorant of the merit of their ideas and plans, dismissive of their desires and beliefs, unforgiving of their perceived inferiority. The nugget of folk wisdom in calling certain people jerks is to highlight this particular species of deficiency.

Jerks see the world through goggles that dim others’ humanity. The server at the restaurant is not a potentially interesting person with a distinctive personality, life story, and set of goals to which you might possibly relate. Instead, he is merely a tool by which to secure a meal or a fool on which you can vent your anger. The people ahead of you at Starbucks are faceless and of no account. Those beneath you in the social hierarchy lack your talents and deserve to get the scut work. . . . 

If the essence of jerkitude is a failure to appreciate the perspectives of others around you, this suggests what might be a non-obvious path to self-knowledge: looking not at yourself but at other people. Instead of gazing into the mirror, turn away from the mirror and notice the colors in which the world seems to be painted. Are you surrounded by fools and non-entities, by people with bad taste and silly desires, by boring people undeserving of your attention, by people who can be understood quickly by applying a broad and negative brush—creeps, stuck-up snobs, bubbleheaded party kids, smug assholes, and, indeed, jerks?

If this is how the world regularly looks to you, then I have bad news. Likely, *you* are the jerk. This is not how the world looks to most people, and it is not how the world actually is. You have a distorted vision. You are not seeing the individuality and potential of the people around you.

(He made some revisions to the version in the book, but I'm quoting from the online version that I originally encountered. The others below I quote from the book versions even though I link to the online versions.)

Needless to say, herds can only be positive things if the jerks among their members are vastly outnumbered by the non-jerks.

He has a couple of other chapters in the book more pertinent to my thoughts today than that one. In the first, he considers the practiced ethics of professional ethicists. Even though that group is the most knowledgeable of any about right and wrong, in practice they aren't any more ethical than the rest of us. He highlights the example of eating cheeseburgers: ethicists believe eating meat is wrong much more highly than the general population, yet still eat cheeseburgers at the same rate as everyone else.

From "Cheeseburger Ethics (or How Often Do Ethicists Call Their Mothers?)"

Any of us could easily become much morally better than we are, if we chose to. . . . 

And yet most of us choose mediocrity instead. It's not that we try but fail, or that we have good excuses. We--most of us--actually aim at mediocrity. The cheeseburger ethicist is perhaps only unusually honest with herself about this. We aspire to be about as morally good as our peers. If others cheat and escape unpunished, we want to do the same. We don't want to suffer for goodness while others laughingly gather the benefits of vice. If the morally good life is uncomfortable and unpleasant, if it involves repeated painful sacrifices that aren't compensated for in some way, sacrifices that others aren't also making, then we don't want it.

Recent empirical work in moral psychology and experimental economics, especially that by Robert B. Cialdini and Cristina Bicchieri, seems to confirm this general tendency. People are more likely to comply with norms that they see others following and less likely to comply with norms they see others violating. Also, empirical research on "moral self-licensing" suggests that people who act well on one occasion often use that as an excuse to act less well subsequently. We gaze around us, then aim for so-so.

What, then, is moral reflection good for? Here's one thought. Maybe it gives us the power to calibrate more precisely toward our chosen level of mediocrity. I sit on the couch, resting while my wife cleans up from dinner. I know that it would be morally better to help than to continue relaxing. But how bad, exactly, would it be for me not to help? Pretty bad? Only a little bad? Not at all bad, but also not as good as I'd like to be if I weren't feeling so lazy?

These are the questions that occupy my mind. In most cases, we already know what is good. No special effort or skill is needed to figure that out. Much more interesting and practical is the question of how far short of the ideal we are comfortable being.

Suppose it's generally true that we aim for goodness only by peer-relative, rather than absolute, standards. What, then, should we expect to be the effect of discovering, say, that it is morally bad to eat meat, as the majority of US ethicists seem to think? If you're trying to be only about as good as others, and no better, then you can keep enjoying the cheeseburgers. Your behavior might not change much at all. What would change is this: You'd acquire a lower opinion of (almost) everyone's behavior, your own included.

You might hope that others will change. You might advocate general social change--but you'll have no desire to go first.

This both validates my experiences of positive peer pressure and puts a damper on my hopes that all experiences can be so positive. We aspire to be about as morally good as our peers. . . . People are more likely to comply with norms that they see others following and less likely to comply with norms they see others violating. . . . We gaze around us, then aim for so-so. So it all depends on what your herd's level of so-so is. Some, like mine above, have a very high level. But, on average, the expectation should be . . . average.

Schwitzgebel continues the thought in another chapter.

From "Is It Perfectly Fine to Aim for Moral Mediocrity?"

As I suggested in chapter 4, as well as in other work, most people aim to be morally mediocre. They aim to be about as morally good as their peers, not especially better, not especially worse. They don't want to be the one honest person in a classroom of unpunished cheaters; they don't want to be the only one of five housemates who reliably cleans up her messes and returns what she borrows; they don't want to turn off the air conditioner and let the lawn die to conserve energy and water if their neighbors aren't doing the same. But neither do most people want to be the worst sinner around--the most obnoxious of the housemates, the lone cheater in a class of honorable students, the most wasteful homeowner on the block.

Suppose I'm right about that. What is the ethics of aiming for moral mediocrity? It sounds kind of bad, the way I put it--aiming for mediocrity. But maybe it's not so bad, really? Maybe there's nothing wrong with aiming for the moral middle. "Cs get degrees!" Why not just go for a low pass--just enough to squeak over the line, if we're grading on a curve, while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of moderate, commonplace levels of deception, irresponsibility, screwing people over, and destroying the world's resources for your favorite frivolous luxuries? Maybe that's good enough, really, and we should reserve our negative judgments for what's more uncommonly rotten. . . . 

Maybe it would be morally better to aim for moral excellence, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong or bad to shoot instead for the middle. Average coffee isn't bad; it's just not as good as it could be. Average singers aren't bad; they're just not as ... no, I take it back. Average singers are bad. (Sometimes they are joyously, life-affirmingly bad.) So that's the question. Is morality more like coffee or singing?

I'd argue that morality is a bit like singing while drinking coffee. There's something fine about being average, but there are also some sour notes that can't entirely be wished away. I think you'll agree with me, if you consider the moral character of your neighbors and coworkers: They're not horrible, but neither are they above moral criticism. If the average person is aiming for approximately that, the average person is somewhat morally criticizable for low moral ambitions.

The best argument I know of that it's perfectly morally fine to aim to be morally average is what I'll call the Fairness Argument. . . . 

The idea of the Fairness Argument, then, is this: Since most of your peers aren't making the sacrifices necessary for peer-relative moral excellence, it's unfair for you to be blamed for also declining to do so. If the average person in your financial condition gives 3 percent of income to charity, it would be unfair to blame you for not giving more. If your colleagues down the hall cheat, shirk, fib, and flake x amount of the time, it's only fair that you get to do the same. Fairness requires that we demand no more than average moral sacrifice from the average person. Thus, there's nothing wrong with aiming to be only a middling member of the moral community-approximately as (un)selfish, (dis) honest, and (un) reliable as everyone else. . . . 

Most of us aim only for moral mediocrity. We ought to own up to this fact. Proper acknowledgment of this possibly uncomfortable fact can then ground a frank confrontation with the question of how much we really care about morality. How much are we willing to sacrifice to be closer to morally excellent, if our neighbors remain off-key?

I can't deny this rings true. I also know I do my best to raise the standard of average for my herds. Peer pressure is an undeniable reality, even though most of it is not conscious or intentional. It can be positive or negative. Your herd is going to influence you. How will you influence it back?

I just experienced the idea of positive peer pressure and herds bringing out our best in my most recent kids book, Max and the Midknights #2: Battle of the Bodkins by Lincoln Peirce. If anything, even better than the original, I wrote in my review. It stirred my sense of fantasy and adventure at the same time that it entertained and amused me. I hope there's another. It's humorous graphic novel with a medieval fantasy setting. The protagonist is a young girl who wants to be a knight, and she and her friends have adventures and save the kingdom.

This story is concerned with a potential invasion of "bodkins," which are evil doppelgangers. Every person in the kingdom has an exact double who shares everything with them except attitude and goals--the bodkins are angry grouches who want the worst for everyone else. They are hoping to slowly infiltrate society and replace their more positive versions. 

"But if they look just like us . . . how do we know they're not here already? He could be a bodkin! Or she could be a bodkin!"

"Max! Stop!"

The king kneels down next to me. "You've just confirmed that Mumblin was right when he advised us against warning people," he whispers. "Can't you see what that would mean? We'd all start to see bodkins around every corner! As you just did."

I feel my cheeks burning. I guess maybe I did go a little overboard there.

"For now, let's assume that there AREN'T any bodkins in Byjovia," the king suggests as we reach the castle and pass through the main gate. "I'd much rather believe the best about a person than suspect the worst!"

Also, throughout the story Max fears she doesn't measure up. Each of her friends (the self-anointed "midknights") has an area of specialty where they are particularly talented and skilled, including a peer in knight school, and she worries she's not good enough to fit in. She spends the book fretting how she can be worthy of the group. Of course, she already is and proves it numerous times during their adventure, but she feels the positive peer pressure nonetheless.

We can choose to see people as their best selves or as their bodkins. When we see the best in them it helps us bring out the best in ourselves. Feeling positive peer pressure from our herds starts with our own perspectives.

Schwitzgebel has some more ideas about that, but first a digression. I was amused when I came across this claim in the later parts of his book: "If you've read this far into this dorky book, I have some bad news. You're a philosophy dork."

While some might, I don't consider that bad at all. When I shared this image on Facebook, a friend replied--an old classmate of my spouse who lives in England, so we've never met, but we're FB friends. She earned a doctorate in philosophy but gave up on her hopes of making a career in the field after encountering so much bullying and sexism. She responded to the quote:

btw academic philosophy: plagued with arseholes. (i'm sure you've picked this up from my musings.) schwitzgebel has made a name for himself in the profession by being an unusually decent human being.

I'm so pleased to hear that since I've enjoyed his book, and because he seems to have some good ideas for how to be a decent human being.

Briefly, the Dunning-Kruger effect is the idea that the lower ability someone has in an area, the less accurate their self-perception--those who rate low consistently overestimate their ability (while those with high ability underestimate their self-assessment).

From "A Moral Dunning-Kruger Effect?"

Evaluating your own moral or immoral behavior is a skill that itself depends on your moral character. The least moral people are typically also the least capable of recognizing what counts as a moral violation and how serious the violation is--especially, perhaps, when considering their own actions.

Okay, maybe this doesn't help with being good, but it's a fascinating idea that checks out with my experience.

He also has a piece on the "golden rule," to treat others how you would want them to treat you. At work we've done an assessment called the platinum rule, meant to be one better than gold, which is to treat others how they would want to be treated. I had independently arrived at that same rule long before I encountered it. Schwitzgebel takes a different approach in assessing the golden rule; he asks why we should treat others well. His conclusion is to treat others how you would treat those you love most.

From "Imagining Yourself in Another's Shoes"

Care about me not because you can imagine what you would selfishly want if you were me. Care about me because you see how I am not really so different from others you already love. . . . 

People do, naturally, have concern and compassion for others around them. . . . 

Self to other is a huge moral and ontological divide. Family to neighbor, neighbor to fellow citizen--that's much less of a divide. . . . 

If you are one of those people who has trouble standing up for your own interests . . . offer the same kindness to yourself.

Or, from the Christian tradition, love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31, which is a reference to Leviticus 19:18) and love your enemies: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

Though I like Schwitzgebel's reasoning more. Seeing all people like you see those you love allows you to see the best in them--which raises your assessment of your herd's "mediocrity, which encourages you to be your better self as well.

I think this bit from Schwitzgebel's conclusion shows how he manages to be unusually decent.

From "Will Future Generations Find Us Morally Loathsome?"

I find myself, as I write this final chapter, rereading the epilogue of Moody-Adams's 1997 book, Fieldwork in Familiar Places. Moody-Adams suggests that we can begin to rise beyond our cultural and historical moral boundaries through moral reflection of the right sort: moral reflection that involves . . . well, I'm going to bullet-point the list to slow down the presentation of it, since the list is so good:

• self-scrutiny
• vivid imagination
• a wide-ranging contact with other disciplines and traditions
• a recognition of minority voices
• serious engagement with the concrete details of everyday moral inquiry

(This list, I should clarify, is what I extract from Moody-Adams's remarks, which are not presented in exactly these words or in a list format.)

Instead of a narrow or papier-mâché seminar-room rationalism, we should treasure insight from the entire range of lived experience and from perspectives as different as possible from our own, in a spirit of open-mindedness and self-doubt. Here lies our best chance of repairing our probable moral myopia.

If I have an agenda in this book, it's less to defend any specific philosophical thesis than to philosophize in a manner that manifests these virtues.

There's one thing missing from Moody-Adams's lovely list, though, or maybe it's a cluster of related things. It's wonder, fun, and a sense of the incomprehensible bizarreness of the world. We should have those in our vision of good philosophy too! Moral open-mindedness is not, I think, entirely distinct from epistemic and metaphysical open-mindedness. They mix (I hope) in this book. I think I see them mixing, too, in two of my favorite philosophers, the great humane skeptics Zhuangzi and Montaigne.

Uncomfortably self-critical reflections on excuses and jerkitude--they're apt to wear us down, and too much thinking of that sort might reinforce the exact type of moral rationalization we hope to avoid. When we need a break from moral self doubt, and some fun, we can cast ourselves into a different sort of doubt. We can spend some time--you and me together if you like--dreaming of cute Al and zombie robots.

It's an excellent list, one to revisit often.

Finally, an entire chapter--though a short one--because I couldn't find a good way to abbreviate it. It's an important message for me, especially, since I fit the mold described.

"On Being Good at Seeming Smart"

Once upon a time, there was a graduate student at University of California, Riverside, who I will call Student X. The general sense among the faculty was that Student X was particularly promising. For example, after a colloquium at which the student had asked a question, one faculty member expressed to me how impressive the student was. That remark surprised me, because I had thought the student's question had actually been rather poor. But it occurred to me that the question had seemed, superficially, to be smart. That is, if you didn't think too much about the content but rather just about the tone and delivery, you probably would get a strong impression of smartness. In fact, my overall view of this student was that he was about average neither particularly good nor particularly bad--but that he was a master of seeming smart: He had the confidence, the delivery, the style, all the paraphernalia of smartness, without an especially large dose of the actual thing.

Mostly, I've noticed, it's white men from upper- and upper-middle-class backgrounds who are described in my presence as "seeming smart." It's really quite a striking pattern. (I've been keeping a tally since I first became interested in the phenomenon.) This makes sense, in a way. When the topic of conversation is complex and outside of one's specific expertise--in other words, most of philosophy, even for most professional philosophers--seeming smart is probably to a large extent about activating people's associations with intelligence as one discusses that topic. This can be done through poise, confidence (but not defensiveness), giving a moderate amount of detail but not too much, and providing some frame and jargon, and also, I suspect, unfortunately, in part by having the right kind of look and physical bearing, a dialect that is associated with high education levels, the right prosody (e.g., not the "Valley girl" habit of ending sentences with a rising intonation), the right body language. If you want to "seem smart," it helps immensely, I think, to just sound right, to have a "smart professor voice" in your toolkit, to be comfortable in an academic setting, to just strike the listener at a gut level as someone who belongs. Who will tend to have those tools and habits and feelings of confidence, and who will feel like someone who naturally belongs, and who will strike those in power as "one of us"? Unsurprisingly, it's typically the people who culturally resemble those who hold the majority of academic power. Me, for example: the white male professor's kid from an affluent suburb who went to Stanford. But philosophy as a discipline shouldn't be so dominated by my social group. The kid from the inner city whose parents never went to college will also have some interesting things to say, even if she's not so good at "professor voice."

Student X actually ended up doing very well in the program and writing an excellent dissertation. He rose to his teachers' expectations--as students often do. His terrific skill at seeming smart paid off handsomely in attracting positive attention and his professors' support and confidence, which probably helped him flourish over the long haul of the doctoral program. Conversely, the students not as good at the art of seeming smart often sink to their teachers' low expectations--frustrated, ignored, disvalued, criticized, made to feel not at home, as I have also seen.

I hereby renew my resolution to view skeptically all judgments of "seeming smart." Let's try to appreciate instead the value and potential in young scholars who seem superficially not to belong, who seem to be awkward and foolish and out of their depth, but who have somehow made it into the room anyway. They've probably fought a few more battles to get there, and they might have something different and interesting to say, if we're game to listen.

Not just scholars, but all pursuits. Listen.

And this is a valuable thought for both self-awareness and comparison with others.

From "Forgetting as an Unwitting Confession of Your Values"

What we remember says, perhaps, more about us than we would want. Forgetfulness can be an unwitting confession of your values. . . . 

Features of the world that you don't see--the subtle sadness in a colleague's face?--and features that you briefly see but don't react to or retain are in some sense not part of the world shaped for you by your interests and values. Other people with different values will remember a very different series of events. . . . 

Remove from your life everything you forget; and what is left is your reduction of the world to the parts you care about.

I think this communicates not only values, but experiences as well. Those of us with privilege must always listen to what is remembered by those less privileged. Listen.

So that's far too much Schwitzgebel, but I enjoyed his book and much of it speaks to my current thoughts. Your herd will only bring out the best in you if you can manage to see the best in them.

I know this post is a long one, but two more things. First, a news article that hints at some of the issues currently active in our society and that demonstrates negative herd influence.

FAA Warns of Spike in Unruly, Dangerous Passenger Behavior

In a typical year, the transportation agency sees 100 to 150 formal cases of bad passenger behavior. But since the start of this year, the agency said, the number of reported cases has jumped to 1,300, an even more remarkable number since the number of passengers remains below pre-pandemic levels.

The behavior in question includes passengers refusing to wear masks, drinking excessively and engaging in alleged physical or verbal assault, including what the agency describes as political intimidation and harassment of lawmakers. . . . 

“It has been an exhausting time for all the employees who are just trying to do their job according to their company’s policies," she said. “The constant arguing and pushback from guests, it’s ridiculous." . . . 

“What we have seen on our planes is flight attendants being physically assaulted, pushed, choked,” Nelson said. “We have a passenger urinate. We had a passenger spit into the mouth of a child on board.

“These are some of the things that we have been dealing with,” Nelson said, adding that the physical and verbal abuse that flight attendants have allegedly experienced this year has been “way off the charts” compared to the last 20 years.

I hope desperately this doesn't bring down our level of mediocrity. We definitely don't want to start seeing this as normal or acceptable.

Second, a book that illustrates the positive herd behaviors that the majority of us have joined in during this pandemic. It's a new picture book that captures the experience of the past year incredibly well.

That experience has been hardest on our five-year-old. He's the youngest, so has had more formative moments disrupted, plus is the lone extravert in our family of introverts. We had to cancel the big party we were going to plan for his fifth birthday and he didn't get to start elementary school the way we had expected. He loves this book and it clearly speaks to him.

Outside, Inside

by LeUyen Pham

Something strange happened on an unremarkable day just before the season changed.

Everybody who was outside went inside. Everyone. Everywhere. All over the world. Everyone just went inside, shut their doors, and waited.

Well, almost everyone. Some people needed to be where they needed to be.

Outside, the sky was quiet, but the wind still blew and birds kept singing. Raccoons came out and squirrels played in the streets, but the cars stayed away. The world felt a little different.

Inside, we baked and cooked, made music and watched TV. We read and played games. Some of us worked a little, some of us worked a lot, and some of us couldn't work at all. We all felt a little different.

Outside, there were fences both real and pretend. Swings sat still and slides were lonely. Bells didn't ring, and halls were empty. We had birthdays without parties, shared words without sounds, and reached each other without touching. The world was changing a tiny bit outside.

Inside, we waited and we worried, we laughed and we cried, and we tried to breathe. We made things together and did things alone. We hoped and prayed and wished. We were all changing a tiny bit inside.

Outside, the world kept growing. Inside, we kept growing too.

So why did we all go inside? Well, there were lots of reasons. But mostly because everyone knew it was the right thing to do.

On the outside we are all different. But on the inside we are all the same.

And we remembered that soon spring would come. Inside and outside.

Over 50% of eligible adults have now received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine and the companies are doing trials with children. Mask mandates are being lifted--though masks are still encouraged. My library just returned to normal hours and mostly normal services. We've been to visit relatives now and shared hugs with people outside our nuclear family. There may be enough resistance that we don't achieve herd immunity, but spring is gradually getting closer.

Let's all keep working to make "mediocre" as excellent as possible for all of our herds. It starts with how we perceive each other. See the best.