You don’t get the chance to write about epidemics every day, and you don’t get weeks and weeks “off” work to contemplate this Truth every year. It’s rare that the entire country virtually shuts down and we crash internet servers looking for things to do.

The last time something like this happened around here it was a hurricane that ended up not being a hurricane by the time it reached us, and all the canned goods are still in the pantry and the gas for the generator ended up in the lawn mower.

I can’t remember the last time I was able to read a whole book in a week, or I spent hours with family without looking at my watch.

I have literally never been into a store and worried about germs.

Nor have I given one thought to the validity of backyard bunkers and bug-out bags. If I had to survive “on the land” I think the land would end up surviving on me.

The fact that Amazon deliveries are taking ten times longer than normal is unnerving—to think that I have to survive only on what my local economy and stores have in stock. It makes you shop differently.

Of course, there is church, social clubs, and group events that I miss, and I find myself just wanting to shake everybody’s hand again and get a pat on the back. Even from weird Al in the corner.

The kind smile of strangers aren’t a big deal until they’re hidden behind masks and you realize how much you miss them.

And sure I could go on, but what’s the point? You’re living this too—we all are.

The greatest country on earth, with all its independence and opportunity, is suddenly a family, who all have the same things in common. Politics aside—our own unique blend of wardrobes and types of business, just put them all aside—and what you have left is a shared human experience, reminiscent of camp, of 4-H or Boy Scouts.

So sure, the stock market is down, and there is a virus out there seeking your doom, but it’s out there for everybody—the world included. As the hunkering down continues, for the regular folks like you and me, the stock market and politics are old news, and more and more the conversation is turning to the meaning of life—what we take for granted, what we miss and long to experience again.

One way to say it is we expected a blizzard and were given a winter, and it’s the first global winter of the modern age, the first storm to crest the horizon that completely blew past our radars.

Another way to say it is this is a huge deal and represents a significant power shift, as if a global reset button were pressed, a button which we didn’t even know existed.

Or you could say, if we waste this wintery opportunity, we may have deserved it in the first place.

Read this on the VDT.