It's a Construct

"The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins."
—Salman Rushdie

"It's a construct." What does that even mean? Does it really matter? No. It does not. But I welcome the question. Just entertaining the question is evidence of leisure, to some degree. 

A construct only exists in the mind. You cannot put your finger on it, because it's just a theoretical entity. It's an idea, or maybe even less than that: Is it an idea in progress? A broad concept? A working theory? I think it's just a big what if. 

Intelligence is one. Fear, anxiety, motivation, life satisfaction too. Reality. Morality. If everything starts off as an idea, we have to bridge that gap between, "Hey, that's crazy," and "No. Wait. Yeah, no, that could happen. That's happening now." 

Reality. Morality. God. It's all just in our head to some degree. But is it?

What a far-fetched and unlikely set of scenarios we've seen of late. Trump, president? That's absurd. Put another misogynist frat boy on the Supreme Court? No way. We're way past that in the wake of the Me Too movement. A global pandemic that would endure two years in today's day and age? With the technology and medical advances of the twenty-first century?  Naaaah. War in Ukraine? 

How quickly the new, weird way can become the shocking new normal, and faster than you expected. And what was once the norm becomes in turn nuttier than a fruitcake. Wake up early, put on makeup, drive through traffic to some other place to get online every day and WORK for 8 hours? Every day? That's ridiculous. I am NOT doing that ever again. (But I am.)

But that's progress, isn't it? Those more accessible constructs are hopefully within reach, especially as we move toward the the higher pursuits on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Transcendence, self-actualization, aesthetic needs are certainly worthy of striving for in a world not at war. When times are good, they dangle in front of us, to keep us moving forward. That's assuming of course that we are not struggling to cover the basics at the lower levels. I think when we don't get the basics of what we need to survive, that's when all those constructs present to us (fairly, in the moment) as the most unnecessary, as the height of absurdity. Who can contemplate the beauty of fruit in a bowl on a table when he is starving? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's not art. It's sustenance.  

What was normal 18 months ago seems long gone in the rearview mirror today. But after months and months of masking and self-isolating and redefining our work lives, of shutting down casual friendships and doubling down on everyone in your smallest, tightest bubbles, getting a glimpse of that old routine is a shock to the system. But I welcome it.