Disorientation

Living day by day in a world turned upside down

By the time I went to bed—too late—the moon had climbed high into the eastern sky. It dominated the view looking south from our bedroom window, waxing its way towards fullness.

When I awoke—too early—it was no longer visible. But its bright light was cast across the floor, from an angle that placed it to the west.

After another night of fitful sleep, I was left searching for symbols of consistency.

In a world of perilous uncertainty, the march of the heavens—like the rising and setting of the moon, predictable to the second by astronomers—offers something to hold on to. But it’s a mirage. The moon isn’t moving west; its true orbit carries it eastward. Our Earth is just spinning faster than the moon is orbiting, making our closest celestial body appear to be heading backward.

“Apparent retrograde motion” is the scientific term. How fitting a metaphor now for life on Earth.

We are all spinning our way through time and space in ways that alter our perspectives. These days, however, I am particularly aware of a feeling of deep disorientation and imbalance. The progress and patterns that once seemed predictable feel suddenly off-kilter, scattering any semblance of order.

In many respects, life goes on for the vast majority of us. We rise, go to work, move through the week with calendars of activities and obligations. And yet, beneath it all, we feel an undertow of unease—anxious, relentless, and inescapable. I hear it in the voices of friends and family, a shared sense that something fundamental is slipping. Our nation, once a bulwark of stability, is careening into an abyss.

How do we balance quotidian demands with the weight of existential crisis? How do we keep as much of our individual worlds together when pinging news alerts herald escalating autocracy?

I realize that for many, these questions are no longer theoretical. The damage that this lawless regime has inflicted has already upended the lives of millions of people. As the contagion of chaos spreads, what more will be swept aside?

Day by day, we have no choice but to immerse ourselves in the here and now. What’s for dinner? Who will pick up our daughter at rehearsal? There are Zoom meetings at work and weekend plans with friends. Birthday parties and a book half-read on the bed stand.

For my family, Sunday mornings still mean a trip to the farmers' market where we go to our favorite stalls and greet familiar faces. Last week, my wife was out of town and I took my youngest daughter. We then went to a store to try on track shoes as she has taken to running the 400m on her middle school team. I had no idea what I was looking for, and she had to teach me about the different kinds of spikes—a father-daughter morning that felt particularly memorable.

Then my phone buzzed—a text from my brother: The autocrats running our country were apparently ignoring a federal judge’s ruling against sending people from the United States to an El Salvadoran prison without due process.

My older daughter is a junior in high school, and it’s time to think about college. We’re making lists, planning visits. But all of it is unfolding against a backdrop of a deliberate, dangerous attack on higher education. What will the future even look like? She’s interested in science—will there still be a vibrant scientific community in the United States? For her and her friends, there is far more talk of going overseas for college. I want her closer to home, but I sympathize with the sentiment.

I wonder what her future with this country will be.

I am planning to release my first documentary film as a director in late June. I can’t share what it is about yet, but it touches on the worlds of politics, education, and public policy. As we craft messaging for its premiere, I wonder how the feelings we have today will age in a couple of months.

Life is always full of choices and uncertainty—our health being chief among the unknowns. We do what we can to safeguard ourselves and our loved ones, but so much remains beyond our control. Yet today, it’s not just personal fate that feels precarious—the health of our nation, our society, and our future now amplifies the risks we all face and the chances that we will suffer, not just as individuals, but as a collective.

I recognize that for those who have long been marginalized, this sense of uncertainty and harm is nothing new. An unjust society has always placed undue burdens on the most vulnerable, and today, they continue to bear the heaviest weight of political, economic, and environmental instability. What feels like a growing crisis to some might be, for others, simply the latest chapter in a long history of struggle.

We can find hope in the resilience of the human spirit. Even during times of struggle, people have found ways to endure and even thrive. They have carved out lives of love, support, and community, even amidst tumult and loss.

I am inspired by the people with whom I get to collaborate. I support all those who are working tirelessly to pull this country back from the many threats it faces. I see courage and resolve. The work I have the privilege of doing in science communication feels particularly relevant.

I also recognize the need to balance life, to continue to create joy for our children when possible, to plan for a future, and then to make sure that we do everything we can to fight for it.

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