The Most Heroic Thing We Can Do Is Stay out of the Way

Social isolation often feels like the opposite of heroism. But now is the time to swallow our pride. New York City’s Fifth Avenue, empty of traffic on March 31, 2020.

Nothing about quarantine feels heroic. Nothing about sitting in an empty apartment, checking the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 tracker every 10 minutes, feels like saving the world.

Nothing about the paper I’m writing, the pantry you’re stocking, the sale he’s completing, the workout she’s posting, the pizza they’re making — none of that feels heroic when our social media feeds are peppered with dramatic pictures of the USNS Comfort sailing into New York Harbor to provide medical services to a city desperate for help.

Seriously, though. This is an iconic picture. It’ll be in history books.

Except we desperately want to be part of it. For most of us, this pandemic has tapped at a foundational, altruistic urge to do our part. (Not all of us — don’t get me started on a Zoom call I had last week for work, in which one participant gleefully spoke about the huge business opportunity this pandemic had given them).

Our friends and loved ones are on the frontlines, their faces creased by masks worn all day, their eyes bloodshot, their foreheads grooved by too-tight goggles. Our friends and loved ones risk their lives while we… don’t.

If you’re anything like me, social isolation has felt like the opposite of heroism. It’s felt like a jarring mix of survivor guilt, uselessness, and boredom.

In a widely-circulated letter, Craig Smith, MD, chair of the Department of Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, writes, “The entire group of remainders” — those of us not on the frontlines — “suffers from a thirst combined of guilt and FOMO that will never be slaked.”

The world is burning, but we’re fine. And that feels wrong.

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