On the Advent of my Grandmother’s 123rd birthday

Uncertainty is

Has been and always will be

Where I sit, with Love

The gentle, ever-nurturing rains mingled sweetly with my tears as I bathed in the forest today. The unbridled joy and love of my sweet Tosha – as she drinks in universes of sounds and smells that are beyond my ken – is a healing balm to a heart broken by the anger, confusion, polarization and fear that threaten to tear apart a community I love with every fiber of my being.

Ah, how fragile we are indeed.

Here in the woods, I’m invited by the spirits of my mother and grandmother to sit in the cool comfort of the mystery even as the fires of passionate curiosity and intention to be of service to this world burn in my heart.

Embracing this divine paradox is nothing new in my matrilineal ancestry; it clearly inspired my mother and grandmother in their thirst for reliable empirical findings that might heal this world.

Dr. Lavinia Gould Fox

My maternal grandmother, Dr. Lavinia Gould Fox, was a pediatrician who raised two daughters as a single parent when my grandfather suffered a psychotic break. She continued her pediatric research until she was 91, and only ceased her work then because she could no longer make her way to the Stanford campus.

My mother, Dr. Nancy Wertheimer, 

Dr. Nancy Wertheimer

was not only a renowned epidemiologist and Harvard PhD in psychology but a carpenter, gifted visual artist, writer, and probably the most ardent worshipper of beauty I’ve ever known.

Professor Michael Wertheimer

My father, Professor Michael Wertheimer, who was among other things Ram Dass' (then Richard Alpert's) Masters Thesis adviser and a director of the American Psychological Association, has always been deeply committed to rigorous empirical inquiry when faced with uncertainty.

His father, Professor Max Wertheimer, the founder of Gestalt theory in psychology, was utterly devoted to bringing disciplined critical thinking into all of his work (beautifully elaborated in his book “Productive Thinking.”). 

Professor Max Wertheimer

Certainly my male forebears instilled in me a similar impetus to be as rigorous as possible in thinking things through critically – recognizing that my own “beliefs” and hypotheses were empty indeed if not informed by the most reliable data, analysis and verification processes available.



All of which bring me to today, where we find ourselves in the trackless land of the emergent “post-truth” era. An era in which the predominant paradigm asserts that “my beliefs are just as valid as your data,” and surfing YouTube hyperlinks on the internet as “research” is put on a par with scientific, peer-reviewed research that might span months, years or even decades.


No wonder I feel like a stranger in a strange land.


Particularly in a time when the virus that seizes our attention is surrounded by SO much uncertainty, whether in:
• the accuracy of testing and infection/mortality rate data (where Bayes’s Theorem might come into play – but THAT is a vast subject that I might explore in an entirely different post in the future),
• the range of effects from the novel coronavirus (from asymptomatic carriers on one hand to people suffering and often dying from catastrophic kidney, lung, and brain failure on the other … or a spectrum of victims ranging from old, infirm people to healthy young adults suffering massive hemorrhagic strokes or children sickened and dying from pediatric multi system inflammatory syndrome),
• the question of whether or not we actually gain immunity after recovering from the initial disease, or the bizarre pseudo-scientific pronouncements of how a loosely-defined phenomenon of “herd immunity’ might be our salvation …


It’s really quite a rats’ nest. I suspect you knew that already.


So … do I know “the truth” about coronavirus?


Of course not. Nor, at this stage, does anybody, really.


Yet I see many people I love and respect claiming to have a lock on “the truth” and dismissively telling those of us who might question it to “do your research.”


When faced with uncertainty, I will follow in the footsteps of my forebears and look toward clear-headed, disciplined, peer-reviewed, carefully-vetted empirical research. Along with this comes the difficulty of living with deep uncertainty while this necessarily tedious process plods along – all while we’re living together in a world that demands that we respond decisively as soon as we can.


I get it. Many of us find ourselves in a major financial crisis, with almost no ability to work or reliably plan for the future. And the stresses of distancing impact us on so many levels – emotionally, spiritually, physically and practically. (Among other things, I’d love to be able to freely offer a hug to any of you reading this now …)


With this backdrop, a clear, black-and-white, simplistic explanation – especially as it might involve a “conspiracy” – about COVID and the circumstances surrounding how the powers-that-be are dealing with it (or, for that matter, might manipulate it for some nefarious advantage) understandably has a LOT of appeal. All the more so because we’ve seen ample evidence over time of the faults and avarice of the pharmaceutical industry and for-profit medical machine.


Yet this does not warrant abandoning our critical thought or consigning an entire body of disciplined investigative journalism and scientific inquiry to the status of “fake news”. Dismissing an entire body of inquiry as MSM (main stream media) might be tempting as a way to confirm cherished beliefs – and to grossly oversimplify a truly gnarly human crisis – but it is facile, extremely divisive, and ultimately dangerous.


The characterization of journalism as the “Lügenpresse” in the Germany from which my grandfather and his family fled in 1933 was pivotal in cementing fascism there. Such a characterization is dangerously dividing us here in a time when we – more than anything – need to look out for one another.


May we remember that the greatest enemy we face – in many ways greater than the virus itself, which seeks only to replicate itself indefinitely – is polarization itself.


If you’ve read this far, you have my deep gratitude. I send my love out to you all.