Invitation

In the early weeks of 2020, we went from hi fives and traveling the world, to social distancing, telework and self isolation.  With hind sight, some things seem obvious now: restricted travel, working and schooling from home.  Other changes were not predicted: rise of 3D printing volunteers and open hardware design and distributed manufacturing to fill the PPE and respirator gap.

This phase will not last forever, but the world will forever be changed.  We may be going through a major transition and no one knows how the new normal will turn out.  
But we can imagine it.  You are invited to participate in a creative workshop to envision the “new normal”.  I hope you will be able to join us and add your creativity and insights.

If you’d like to participate, begin by creating a piece, like writing a short vignette, a painting, or a sculpture, a piece of music, that pictures YOUR life and how it looks and feels at the beginning of our societal COVID-19 recovery, and to be prepared to share your work PHASE 1.  
Feel free to draw from one or more of the following scenarios or make up your own.– Successful COVID-19 vaccine widely available– Successful therapeutics for COVID-19 widely available– No successful therapy or vaccine developedBe bold. Be creative.Be specific.

We shared the following pieces online 5/31/2020

Opening statement (Justin)

Thank you all for agreeing to participate in NCV2020!  A night with our displays splitscreen with Crew Dragon and George Floyd.
I’ve asked this group, you, for your deep though, your independence, your caring, your unique and creative abilities, in the hopes that we can find a positive path forward, to invent the future we want to see and to usher in a new era.
So keep that in mind as we share our work.   Some of you volunteered to present tonight, others offered to participate in the discussion.  This is an open floor and I hope everyone will share their thought on the various materials.  Feel free to speak up.
Let me tell you how I think this is going to work.  
We will start with introductions.  I was too afraid to introduce our distinguished cast.  So I will ask you to introduce yourself after I call your name. 
Then we will get into our vignettes.  Each vignette (story, poem, artwork) will be presented followed by a short discussion.  Once all the vignettes have been presented, we will have an open discussion.
Finally we will wrap things up and adjourn.
Affer the meeting, if you like a piece to be included on our procedings, please send it to me in an email and I will make sure it gets in.  Or if you have any additional ideas later, you can send those in too.
Thanks again, so here we go.

Proof of Work (Justin)

Jamile’s screen flashed dark.  That would be the end of SciCoin mining for today.  The cloudy weather combined with his aging power packs rendered his off the grid generator useless past midnight.  “Of the grid”, he though with a chuckle remembering the endless power once available to any global citizen, and for pennies.  “For what noble task did we use all that power? We squandered it on LEDs, cat videos, peak-achoo and twiiter.  And bitcoin mining.  Such a waste” he thought.  
Bitcoins, the first majorly traded crypto currency created “value” by solving useless math problems for “proof of work”.  Somehow people were convinced this proof of work was also proof of worth.  But the only real effect it had was to contribute to global warming and bitcoin crashed along with almost everything else when the Internet went down.  
Hyper inflation brought on by the the many many “stimulus” packages meant to prop up the stock market and keep the paper kingdom alive, while it ignored the truly needy, was the death knell of the US government.  When a million dollar paycheck wasn’t enough to buy food, people just stopped showing up to work.  Other nations succumbed to the collapsing global economy as well.
The cities, no longer able to sustain their teaming masses, were abandon.  Those who “sheltered in place” just starved-in-place.  Jamile survived alone in Reston, VA just outside of DC, on a freedom garden started during the pandemic.  That, and a horde of MRE’s (a gift from  his prepper Dad).  The exodus of refugees streaming out of DC mostly ignored his neighborhood off the beaten path to the greener pastures in Loudon.  It was worse for the Texans whose southward migration was stopped cold by Trump’s border wall.
At first bartering replaced Paypal and Venmo.  You can still trade a hardback book for a weeks rations regardless of the subject, or you could trade a Tesla Model 3 for a one year farm-share.  Electric cars were the only ones that held any value after the collapse, mostly due to thier battery capacity.  Long distance travel is simply not possible with all of the Mad Maxes out there and yes, that is really what they call themselves.
But soon, Xcoins started showing up to augment bartering.  Xcoin is a generic term for a cypto currencies with a specific purpose-filled proof of work.  Jamile started SciCoin mining after he discovered a minor optimization to a protien folding algorithm that allowed him to increase the  number of configurations per second he could search and thus, earn more SciCoin.  SciCoins can be traded for other crypto currencies like MedCoin or FarmCoin, once a day over low-bandwidth HAM radio bridges.  
Jamile cobbled together a Linux cluster of old laptops and raspberry pi’s, and kept them running as much as his small solar panels and batteries could support.  “Another day…” he thought as he drifted off to sleep “…. another day”.  

Novel Co-Vision 2020 Board (Amy)

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

New Energy (Margaret)

…as we move forward (Justin)

Gabriel still marveled at the blue sky.  Today marks the 10th anniversary of the discovery of Conanix, the Covid19 vaccine and the end of fossel fuels.  The tripple whammy of the election of Donald J Trump, the novel corona visrus and the global race riots were no match for the resiliancy and inginuity of the of human spirit. But did manage to shake loose the old power stucture.  And there is no way we were going to let them go back to clogging our sky and lungs when clean alternatives available.  
Finally he catches a glint from drone banking toward his driveway.  “Right on time” he thought as the drone reveresed thrust to hover over his driveway and began lowering its payload. The package stopped short 10 feet overhead to await confirmation.  Gabe keyed in the access code on his phone and beamed it up to the awaiting drone.  Communal touch screens never returned to common use afer the pandemic.  
Gabe released the package and turned back to the house as the drone retracted the paylaod bay merged into the humming freeway aloft.  One hour till she arrives for their first in person meeting.  “They say ‘you can’t buy love,'” he mumbled to himself.  “But this little bottle of Fourcas Dumont centainly wont hurt…” 

My Troubles Are Not More Important Than Yours. Or So I Keep Trying to Remind Myself.

Dena — July 4, 2020

Scout had a bad day at school. She came home complaining about what had happened with her teacher and asked Atticus if she could stay home and not go back.

“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—”

“Sir?”

“—Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee, July 1960
60 years ago, this month.l

When I look at my calendar, all I see are days double-booked with meetings on important topics that stretch from early morning to late at night. This is how my calendar has looked for the past many months. Searching for something unimportant that I can cut to make room for new appointments, let alone time to eat or pee or do something fun, I don’t find much. What’s more, it looks much the same for the weeks ahead. I am weary. But I am ashamed to complain because I have trained for most of my adult life to do the work that I am doing and am deeply grateful for the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the pandemic response. Moreover, I know I have it good. But I am tired.

For me, and for many others in health care, COVID-19 has brought with it a new level of work intensity. But those of us experiencing this stress are not alone. Everyone is suffering. We have all had our lives, routines, and relationships disrupted by the pandemic. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that nearly half of all Americans report feeling that the pandemic has negatively affected their mental health. I can’t believe it isn’t more.

Friends who are parents are overwhelmed as they take on the herculean task of simultaneously providing child care and homeschooling while also doing their jobs. Exhausted childless colleagues tell me they are working harder than ever, picking up the slack for coworkers who have kids, angry their contributions go unrecognized.

Many of my clinical friends talk about being burnt out from long hours and continual exposure to patients who are critically ill—both with COVID-19 and other serious medical conditions—and feel their administrators, friends, and family who have the luxury of working from home can’t really understand. In contrast, pals experiencing “Zoom burnout” report that seeing themselves and monitoring their appearance on video all day is increasing their anxiety and having a negative effect on their body image.

My 84 year old mother, like many seniors, is worried about contagion being brought into her home. People are worried about finances. People are grieving the loss of loved ones—either due to coronavirus-related illness or other maladies—and they are doing so largely alone, without the benefit of funerals or other in-person gatherings that help us process grief. Moreover, people are fighting the weight of systemic racism, or feeling anger, guilt, or confusion as they struggle to understand more about the issue.

…

Being empathic is hard enough under the best of circumstances. When we are suffering, it can be particularly emotionally challenging to have empathy for those around us. However, I believe that now, more than ever, we need to be empathetic. Otherwise, we risk increasing both our own stress and that of others. As the nation reopens offices, job sites, retail stores, and restaurants, we will have fundamentally different experiences in these places than we did just a few months ago. Important public health requirements regarding the wearing of face masks and social distancing both in the workplace and in social settings means that we all have to bear the cognitive burden of complying with a new set of rules or the consequences of willfully not doing so.

When we see people doing things that we don’t understand or suspect may be increasing our own risk of illness, it can be hard for our initial reaction to be one of empathy rather than one of judgement. We are likely to ask, why isn’t he wearing a mask? Why is she standing so close? Why is he coughing so much? Does he have COVID-19? Why is my office manager making me walk this direction to the bathroom? Why is my boss asking if I feel well? When will people stop telling me where I can go or not go?

When faced with these questions, it might be helpful to consider a lesson from the Dalai Lama: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” While at the Mayo Clinic for a medical evaluation, he spoke to health care providers about the importance of compassion, which he defined as the combination of empathy and reason, to regulate stress. “Compassion opens our heart. Fear, anger, hatred narrow your mind.”

…

In addition to being empathic and compassionate as individuals, I believe we need for our organizations to be more empathetic as well. Specifically, the responsibility of cultivating a culture of empathy falls not just to coworkers but to employers as well. Several practical steps may help.

First, as employers, we should set clear policies about what is expected in the workplace and communicate them effectively. State and local governments differ widely in their requirements for health screenings, symptom reporting, testing, cleaning, desk configuration, and PPE. If employers develop thoughtful plans that are clearly designed to prioritize employee safety and articulate the rationale for changes from their workplace status quo, employees are more likely to feel supported by management and comply with new policies.

Second, we need to be creative in developing ways for employees to work safely and effectively together. For example, we may need to develop new ways to foster collaboration. Anyone who has been in a meeting with me knows that I love bounding from my chair, grabbing a marker to write on a whiteboard, and then passing that marker on to a colleague to make my thinking better. That’s no longer a safe option. We need to adopt new technologies and policies to facilitate the productivity of all employees.

Finally, we must develop greater flexibility to support the individual needs of our employees. This includes recognizing that we cannot fully appreciate any employee’s home situation, risk tolerance, or emotional status. We must provide mental health support and remove the barriers to accessing it. Gratefully, it appears that many employers are working hard to do this. According to a recently-published NBGH survey, 69% of employers are offering virtual psychotherapy, 49% are offering resiliency programs, and 50% are offering stress management options.

To safely navigate the upcoming months of the pandemic, we all have to change how we live, work, and interact with each other. I hope that increasing our capacity for empathy both as individuals and as organizations will keep us happier, healthier, and more connected long after this crisis.

#BLACK_LIVES_MATTER

• 

• 

• 

• 

Uttam Paudel

I made some acrylic paintings and was planning to share them with you all. Attached are two paintings I recently made inspired by our last discussion–it attempts to capture my vision of a much simpler self-sustainable world.

• 

• 

Dawn Bravata (Buckle and Shimmer_for JTG_Co-Vision_2020)

He was supposed to be watching the dancers.

But he watched her instead.

She paid him no attention. She simply worked diligently, recording the motions of the dancers in her book. Capturing their movements in lines drawn on her pages.

They were the only two who ever watched the dancing from the tall tower at the center of the promenade.  It was not the fashionable place to watch the dancing. The seven flights of stairs were a barrier to any but the most determined souls. But he knew it provided the best view.  From their perch, they watched as the dancers formed two lines which moved in response to the music. Lines broke apart into circles. Circles became twisting spirals that intersected and eventually settled back into orderly lines.

Of course the musicians were there, having had to carry their instruments and music stands up the stairs.  Quintets were stationed at all of the observation decks, held in synchrony by the astonishingly loud metronomes.  The steady beat ensured that the musicians in their tower played the same music that drove the dancers on the ground below.

Every fortnight of the five month promenade season, Buckle had studied her as she worked with focused attention to draw the dance patterns.  He guessed that she came from a family of means because her boots and gloves were made of fine black leather. But unlike the other prosperous young ladies he encountered, she did not dress in a long skirt, cape, and feathered top hat. Instead, she wore forest green pants tucked into knee high boots and a high-collared slate gray jacket that fell to just above her knees.  A long white scarf had been casually wound around her face—its ends floated on the wind.  Her hat was a simple black flattop; a deep groove ran around the oval crown. He was not a connoisseur of lady’s fashion, but he knew hats, and hers was an unusual but elegant design executed in highest quality material.

Buckle counted as the Grange Hall bell rang eight times.  The sun was low on the horizon.  It would be the last dance.

Although she typically recorded every dance, at the sound of the bell, the young lady packed her notebook and pencil in her satchel, put her hands on the small of her back and stretched. She leaned on the railing overlooking the promenade.  He had been watching her from his usual place under the roof of the tower. But, on impulse, he stepped forward and joined her at the railing. Of course, he maintained a man’s-height’s distance.  

“Hello,” she said.  “We seem to be the only two who ever use this tower.”  

“Hello. Yes,” he answered awkwardly, astonished both to have been addressed so directly by the young lady and to discover that she had noticed him.  “You make wonderful drawings.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Do you invent the dances?” Buckle asked.  He had conjectured that, although she was decades younger than any of the dance masters who purchased hats from his family’s factory, the reason she was so engrossed in recording the dancers’ moves was because she designed the elaborate dances that provided entertainment both for the participants and for the onlookers. The dances were the primary social activity for the community, allowing people to gather without touching and to work together to create something fleeting but beautiful.  The dances and music for each Grange promenade season were selected during the summer and distributed publicly each fall in thick catalogs.  Dance masters earned their livings teaching the steps to the wealthy who could afford both the master’s fees and the expense of maintaining a dance room in their homes.  

“Oh, no!” she said. “I make their capes.”

“Their capes?” Buckle asked.

“Do you see how the light reflects off of the dark blue one, there?” she said, pointing to a dancer whose cobalt blue cape had been beaded with crystals that caught the sunlight and reflected it around the promenade.

“Yes,” Buckle answered. He watched the blue cape swirl and float. As the setting sun cast a golden glow over the promenade, the crystals shimmered like tiny mirrors, sometimes appearing red and other times green.  Only a handful of dancers wore capes with crystals, but the flashes of light demanded attention. The other dancers were only the landscape for these rare earthly-stars. “It’s beautiful.” 

“Thank you. Why do you come to this tower to watch?”

“I make their hats. His hat,” Buckle said as he pointed to a man three dancers to the left of the woman with the blue cape. The man wore a tall leather top hat festooned in brass rivets. “And hers,” he said pointing in the opposite direction, to a woman whose wide-brimmed fedora was crowned with white and red feathers that bobbed with the movement of the dance.

“Ah. You must be Buckle.”

“Yes. That’s right,” he said making a bow.  

“It’s nice to meet you.”

When she did not spontaneously offer her name, he asked, “May ask your name, Miss?”

She hesitated but answered quietly, “Shimmering. But people call me Shimmer.”

‘Ah. She’s an adjective. Wealthy and an adjective,’ Buckle thought.  

She looked down, seeming to sense what he was thinking.  Of course it had been this way her whole life.  People presuming they understood her circumstances, her family’s circumstances, when they learned her name.  She hoisted her satchel onto her right shoulder, looked up and said, “It’s good to meet you Buckle.”

“The pleasure is mine, Miss,” Buckle said as he turned his right hand to show her his palm in a sign of friendship.  Behind his facecloth, he was smiling, but he knew she could not see his face. He hoped that she could see the trace of a smile at the edge of his eyes.

She began the decent down the circular staircase while the musicians played the final song of the evening.