Same New, Same New

When asked “What’s new?” during this time of COVID, we might answer with a sigh “same old, same old.” Days blur, little is newsworthy, and we mark time by trash pickup days. With little stimulation and in-person interaction, it’s easy to feel lifeless. To add spark in my life, I read biographies, where I find in the famous figures of past centuries the precursors of leading figures today. Apparently human nature doesn’t change, and I sometimes find myself in the historical figure’s foibles. More life-giving, though, than biographies, is enhancing someone’s life through a phone call or good deed. Ilia Delio in her essay Evolution Toward Personhood writes “The more one affirms life in one’s fellows and gives oneself to enhance their lives, the more one is truly alive and thus truly oneself.” With more time on our hands, we can more easily think of easing another’s burdens. Even when we expend our energy, we feel more life and humbly get in touch with our own goodness, our ways to find in routine the “same new, same new.”