It wouldn’t be wise for me to write to you right now about the things that I most want to share, or at least it wouldn’t be wise for me to address them directly, so I’m going to circle the subject.
This newsletter began with the premise that it would be worthwhile to record the experience of coming out of quarantine, and to reflect on the experience of living through it. Though it was always clear that a true return to normalcy would not happen this year or possibly ever, I did begin this summer thinking that I wouldn’t be too worried by COVID anymore come the fall. The vaccines are so much better than they were expected to be. We have reasonably competent people in the federal government. Distribution started slow but ramped up quickly. The people that I love all got their shots, as far as I can tell.
In my day job, I work at a public university in Iowa. We have no mask or vaccine mandates. School is starting up again. My county is one of few places in the state where vaccination rates are close to what they should be; I’m not sure how the incoming and returning student body compares, and I’m not aware of any systematic effort to find out. There was a period where—this is no exaggeration—Iowa City was close to the worst place in the world in terms of COVID cases. I hope that won’t happen again. I don’t know what the odds are that it will.
It seems clear at this point that eventually everyone is going to get the virus, not because it has to be that way but because there is an organized political effort to ensure it, paired with not-quite-organized communities of people refusing to protect themselves or their neighbors. Those of us who are vaccinated, and who keep up with any necessary booster shots, will mostly survive, though some of us won’t. Most of us won’t even have to go to the hospital. Many of those who are not vaccinated will die, or will suffer for the rest of their lives, which may for all we know be badly shortened. The hope is no longer to avoid this happening, but to make sure that it happens slowly enough that our health care systems can keep up with it. Our only ambition is to avoid overwhelming the hospitals. I do think that in many states we will be able to achieve that uninspiring goal; I’m not convinced that mine is one of those.
And so I am wearing masks again indoors, even where no one around me is doing the same, not because I think it will matter very much, but because little bits help. The responsible people among us are doing their best to save this embarrassing planet in dribs and drabs. They are also—we are also—the people who are most powerless to help. We’ve already done the biggest thing we can. Every additional contribution on our part is marginal at best.
We can see in this moment how the looming disasters of our future are most likely to progress. Heroic scientific interventions will keep life livable for the lucky and the careful as climate change makes itself impossible to ignore, but we will never collectively organize enough to make ourselves actually safe, or to protect the people who need our help most. I expect a similar dynamic with the waning power of antibiotics, and with every other apocalypse that I don’t know about or have for the moment forgotten. This is the equilibrium that we choose every day, not because people are too stupid to do better but because there is an organized political effort to ensure it, and because a morally corrupted minority of the population values our suffering over their own happiness. It is not that they “vote against their own interests.” It is that their interests are evil.
I live with a narrative disease—probably a common one, I think. When I imagine the future, I always extrapolate from the worst parts of the present, predicting that every terrible trend will only get worse, that I will always feel the way that I feel now, but more so. This despite the fact that my life is obviously better now than it was ten years ago, and much better still than it was ten years before that. If I keep predicting my own doom, I will eventually be right, but I’ve found it’s best if I don’t think about the future at all, and so I try whenever possible to resist the urge.
At the same time, my day job involves planning complex programs that serve hundreds of people. Probably my most important skill in this role, the key to my success, is imagining each step of the program and predicting the ways that it could go wrong. You can never anticipate every problem, but you do need to predict most of them, and you need to make plans other people can follow to fix them. In fact, the plans need to be good enough that people will follow them without knowing that there ever was a plan. You have to make it feel natural, even inevitable.
I’ve just been through the toughest four days of my year, planning-wise. We were mostly successful, insofar as these things can be measured so early. As the dates approached, my sleep degraded in quality—I would wake up worrying about one aspect or another, imagining some disaster I had to avoid. It became impossible to concentrate on things like reading and writing. A couple weeks ago, I received the first proofs for my book; I haven’t opened them yet. Though I suppose that I will sometime today.
There came a point where the main thing I could do to stop myself from worrying was to play a videogame called Pokémon Unite.
I really like this game. It’s a MOBA, which will mean something to approximately two of you reading this; MOBAs are sport-like games where teams of players on a large map fight each other, gather resources, and score points. In this one, you control a Pokémon. Some of the Pokémon are cute—others are assholes.
Pokémon Unite has relatively simple controls, but its rules are complex and often opaque, which is true of most games in this genre. A standard game takes ten minutes, which tend to naturally divide into relatively predictable phases. For the first minute or so, players on each team spread out and kill non-player monsters in order to gather points and experience. A good team works cooperatively, making sure that certain Pokémon—the ones who start out weak but become much stronger—get the majority of the resources. Over the second and third minutes, the teams feel each other out, engaging in skirmishes in central areas of the map, testing to see whether any of the players will overreach and allow themselves to be killed. Stronger non-player monsters periodically spawn, introducing mechanical wrinkles that require the teams to rapidly prioritize, usually without any kind of explicit communication. For example, a monster called Drednaw spawns at the bottom of the map. If you’re close enough, and if you have a teammate or two with you, and if you and the teammates have enough health, and if there aren’t any other pressing concerns, you will probably go and fight Drednaw, which is helpful because killing him grants you experience and a temporary protective shield. You declare this intention by walking toward him. The other players declare their support by following you down. Sometimes, though, they don’t—either because they think something else is currently more important, or because they aren’t paying attention. Pokémon Unite is, at its core, a game about paying attention, and about collaboration with strangers.
Most of the time I play Snorlax. He looks like this:
When you’re Snorlax, your job is to soak up lots of damage so other, more fragile Pokémon don’t get hurt. One of your most important powers is a shield that you can use to protect your teammates. I like playing as Snorlax because it’s usually very obvious what he is supposed to be doing at any given time. My only job when I play is figuring out the best way to be Snorlax in any given moment—it’s mentally engaging, even absorbing, but also relaxing. The big guy usually looks like he’s having a good time. He takes a lot of naps, and when he runs he smiles.
Snorlax pairs well in the early game especially with small Pokémon who need help to gather experience so that they can become strong. One of my favorite parts of the game is running through the map with a Pikachu or an Alolan Vulpix, serving as their bodyguard and helper. If you let them have the finishing blow in a fight, they get more experience, so it’s good for Snorlax to soften up enemy monsters and then step away, giving his little buddy the final attack. In ranked play, with experienced teammates, this often happens effortlessly. You and your partner tell each other a quick, simple story of cooperation, generosity, and forbearance. There are dozens of similar little stories that each round of Pokémon Unite can tell. Here’s another:
When you go into the grass, you become invisible to enemy players. You can hide there. To your teammates though, you are still visible. Sometimes you are walking along, working on your own project, and then you see your teammate hiding in the grass. It may be obvious to you why they are hiding—maybe they’re setting up a sneak attack, or maybe they are waiting to steal the finishing blow on a non-player monster that the other team is currently fighting. Seeing them there, hiding like that, feels like an invitation, and sometimes it is. You can step into the grass and hide there with them. When the moment is right, if you’re paying good attention to each other, if you read the situation well, you can jump out of the grass and accomplish something together. This feels great every time.
Why am I talking to you about a cute little videogame? Because it’s been on my mind for the last couple weeks. Because it’s free for Switch owners and I would probably like to play it with you. Because it wouldn’t be wise for me to discuss the things that I want to tell you about. When I extrapolate from this moment to the future, I feel scared—but on the other hand, that’s always true of me. It doesn’t tell you much.
A decision has been made that we are all going to get COVID. A decision has been made that most of us will live through it and that many of us won’t. The pandemic isn’t over, but our efforts to resist it mostly are. We are mostly talking about other things. I am trying not to think about the future more than I have to. I am thinking, when I am able to choose my own thoughts, about Pokémon instead.
Thank you as always for reading. I hope you’ll consider preordering my book Drowning Practice, which is also about some things that scare me.
Damn. It's true, though. Wonderful writing, Mike.