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Apart from the "Soon I won't have to be quite as afraid that I'm going to die from COVID or bring it home to my family" feelings, I've had some other, larger feelings about getting my first dose of the COVID vaccine yesterday as a human and as a father that I wanted to unpack.
I look back at past generations and feel that many of those people got to experience a lot of "Look what we can do" moments. Landing on the moon, eradicating smallpox, the civil rights movement, women's suffrage, creation of a world-wide internet, solid organ transplantation, etc
Many moments when a parent could say to their children with pride in their species and their tribe, "Look what we can do." I recognize this is likely partly hindsight bias.
But. I feel like so much of the last decade for me, and perhaps thrown into sharpest relief this past few years as a US citizen, has been filled with a vast embarrassing sense of "Oh God, look what we have done."
We increasingly bear witness to the role we continue to play in accelerating destructive climate change.
We watch as we pervert the promise of an internet-connected world to a bubbling hatred and misinformation machine. I personally continue to learn that racism, xenophobia, and sexism are not only alive but thriving and seem more deeply entrenched than ever.
And these past 4 years as an American ....let's just say it's been a tough 4 years to talk with my 2 sons about humanity with a sense of pride.
But yesterday.
Yesterday when I received my first dose of the vaccine - this result of such exultant and beautiful science, born of days and nights and weeks and months and years of human toil and genius. This thing born of miraculous human endeavor.
I came home last night and showed my sons my little bandaid. And it was a small moment when I could say to them with immense pride, "Look at this. Look what we can do."
