Life During COVID-19

Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.... A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.

Albert Camus, The Plague

More Life During COVID-19

It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer, as if they really did suffer. (Parem passis tristitiam facit, pati posse.)

Seneca, as quoted by Montaigne

Exponential growth inside a finite system leads to collapse.

Richard Powers, The Overstory

Zeus is to blame. He deals to each and every laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases.


Homer, The Odyssey (Book 1, line 401, as translated by Robert Fagles)