"...all of this has happened before"

The ancient Roman philosopher-king, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his book Meditations, "Remember to bear in mind constantly that all of this has happened before.  And will happen again - the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging."  He was referring at the time to the Antonine Plague of 165 CE, which scholars now feel was likely due to either smallpox or measles.  The virus was said to have started in the East, likely in China.  It spread quickly to the east, west, north, and south.  It crossed borders and traveled across oceans, until it became a worldwide pandemic. 

Ryan Holiday also referred to the Antonine Plague in his "Daily Stoic" blog post this past week, "The only thing that spread faster than the contagion was the fear and the rumors.  People panicked.  Doctors were baffled.  Government officials dawdled and failed.  Travel was delayed or rerouted or aborted altogether.  Festivals, gatherings, sporting events - all cancelled.  The economy plunged.  Bodies piled up."

Sound familiar?  History, as I have often said (see "Past is Prologue" and "Study the Past"), repeats itself.  These kinds of worldwide pandemics are not new - just read about the Bubonic Plague (the so-called "Black Death") during the Middle Ages, the Spanish Flu of 1918, or even the cholera pandemics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The stories of these pandemics from the past are eerily familiar to those of us dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic of today.

The lesson here, which I think bears repeating.  We live in a global society.  Indeed, based on what I can tell from the pandemics above, we have always lived in a global society.  What happens in one part of the world absolutely impacts what happens on the opposite end.  That was the way it was during the Antonine Plague, the Black Death, and the Spanish Flu, and that is the way it is today.  We are all connected - in many ways, we are even more connected now than we ever have been in the past.

Any attempt to isolate ourselves from the rest of the world simply will not work.  We are all interconnected.  Just look at what has happened with our supply chains.  Why do we hear so muchg about shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE)?  Just take a guess where most of the PPE we use today is made?  China.  What about the recent concerns about a shortage of the nasal swabs that are so essential to testing for COVID-19?  Guess where they are made.  Italy.

Consider the so-called "butterfly effect" from chaos theory.  It is metaphorical for sure, but illustrative of what I am talking about here.  It states that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, there will be a tornado in Texas.  Why does this happen?  Again, speaking purely in metaphors, small events in one part of the world can have drastically different effects in another simply because we are all connected in a large-scale system.  The decisions that are local and national leaders make today will have an impact on what happens all around the world.

We would do well to remember this lesson.  "All of this has happened before."  And it will surely happen again.