36 The oracle neither declares nor conceals, but gives a sign
Heraclitus is talking about the most famous oracle in ancient Greece, the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. The oracle famously demanded that the questioner did some work in interpreting the answer given: the answer pointed the way, but it would leave some ambiguity.
I feel like that’s something of what I’m doing in these fragments of mine. I don’t know any more than anyone else how and when this pandemic will end, and what the long-term costs will be. But I do know that there’s no point waiting for it all to be over before trying to work out how to respond. And I’m looking for people to guide me, as well as offering what wisdom I may have.
It feels at the moment as if we have partial maps, each showing something of the terrain and the way ahead. To add to the challenge, some of the maps are fake, showing ways that don’t exist or removing features from the landscape. Interpreting all that partial information, in order to plot a way ahead, can only be a shared task.