Many of you will agree that we are living in a time of plague and disease, and it's laid bare the prevarications of modern society and its loftily-stated intentions of providing for the welfare of all citizens, near and far. The burden of disease falls most harshly on those least able to protect against it, namely people of color and the elderly, and its opportunistic nature on morbidity tears back the blinders of any belief in our ability to protect ourselves…or anyone else…from the scourge of disease and the ravages of death.  A plague that brings infectious disease also exposes the strength or weakness of any systematic effort to combat its wrath, and it enforces the need to isolate so as not to contaminate. 

However, isolation is separation, and fear & anxiety grow in the darkness that has been overtaking America during the age of pandemic.

For those of us who have been able to shelter in place during this phase of our troubled times, it has allowed us a sense of well-being knowing that now only are we safe & healthy, but our families are as well, and we shelter the rest of the world from our being a possible source of contamination. My personal conception is borne out of the sense that everyone is of concern to me, respect is the first form of social contact, and is the basis for the social contract. Unfortunately, the state of terror that has been building without abatement for the past six months in America has allowed for the unleashing of the unbridled forces of the terrorist State, and another innocent has become another of its intended victims.

“Ain’t nothin’ changed but the weather…” are sage words to describe our occluded ability to embrace one another and attempt to bridge differences and achieve understanding.  We are all living under a more occluded front; we can only be personally free when we embrace the knowledge that we all yearn for the same. In that manner, all of us can build the Bridge to Change.

Andrew Clarke

Andrew Clarke is a financial planner at a large internationally-based firm, but he has no current affiliation with any organizations or groups. Having grown up in the 1960s has shaped his political leanings, and the overwhelming socio-economic inequity of our time so deeply affected him and made him harken back to the days of rabid anger present during the Civil Right Movement.