海角大神

Today鈥檚 selected stories cover U.S. elections in a time of uncertainty, a lack of global pandemic cooperation, a trip to obscure Russian territories, a U.S. military effort to address racial inequality, and global points of progress.

If you are among the millions of people under lockdown, you could binge on all five seasons of 鈥淛ane the Virgin.鈥� Or watch 听on Facebook Live at the Cincinnati Zoo. Or, as actor Rita Wilson did, create a Spotify playlist, 鈥�.鈥澨�

Creativity is irrepressible. And history suggests this kind of adversity produces fresh perspectives.

Take the bubonic plague that swept London in 1655. If a quarantine hadn鈥檛 shuttered the University of Cambridge 鈥� sending young Isaac Newton to his home in the countryside 鈥� who knows how long before about the laws of gravity, motion, and optics?

Let鈥檚 go a little further back to 1593 when theaters were closed by the plague. William Shakespeare couldn鈥檛 perform so he wrote the renowned poem 鈥淰enus and Adonis,鈥� a brilliant ode to love and nature. When the theaters closed again in 1606, the Bard of Avon got busy. He wrote 鈥淜ing Lear,鈥� 鈥淢acbeth,鈥� and 鈥淎ntony and Cleopatra,鈥� according to Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro.

I鈥檓 not suggesting that Shakespeare 鈥� or Charlotte Bront毛 鈥� could have accomplished what they did during epidemics if they鈥檇 had children running around at the same time. But if听not for England鈥檚 lockdown, would we understand love as an 鈥渆ternity 鈥� in our lips and eyes鈥�? Would we truly taste the sweet 鈥渕ilk of human kindness鈥�?

As tragic and challenging as this pandemic is today, we may look back on 2020 not as defined by COVID-19, but as a year bursting with creativity 鈥� a time when playwrights, scientists, and artists found the space to see the world anew.

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