I was having dinner with some good friends last week. He a physician, recently retired; she a principal, head of her own, private middle school. Both are trained thinkers and observers; both experienced in those endeavours. M, the educator, was sneezing and sniffling, apologetically reassuring that her ‘symptoms’ were an allergic reaction — ‘not to the company’, again reassuringly. Never at a loss for conversational topics, she borrowed my napkin (having exhausted her own and husband’s) to ‘mop up’ — and the chat turned to COVID-19.

A significant plank in my friendship with P, the physician, is his grounded, no-nonsense, and (underscore) reality-based view of the world — something I like to think we both share. On long bike rides, he’s fond of sharing his aphorisms and agitations, both the aggregation of long years of practice and exposure to the human condition. He opened the conversation with a query: ‘so what do you think the mortality rate of this one is?’ Reference to the red-plumed snowball pictured above. In short order, followed comparisons between the world’s current obsession and the more mundane, ‘common garden variety’ flu. To wit, the base rates hove into view — that would be the naturally occurring frequency of a phenomenon in a population. And, as it turns out, the former (aka, the bloody snow ball) is running a shade over 2%; the latter, hovering just above 1% — depending on the population sampled, and the particular strain of good, old fashioned, happens every year FLU. Hmm?

So. . . what’s up? Not a simple question. A Harvard epidemiologist estimates that between forty per cent and seventy per cent of the world’s roughly five billion adults will eventually (read, over the next four to five years) contract COVID-19. Having picked oneself off the floor, it may be politic to take a Valium. I recall long term care homes restricting access, hospital wards instituting amped up isolation and containment practices — every year of my four decade’s work in public health facilities. I do not recall quarantined cruise ships, store shelves devoid of toilet paper and rubbing alcohol, cancelation of major public events world wide, stock market catastrophics, condemned countries, boycotting of my favourite Mexican beer, failing economies, and every Tim Horton’s table talk subject (since 9-11) centring on the viral treat of the week.

It’s hard to argue the scenery chewing, centre stage status of an event that will potentially impact up to 3 of 4 folks standing on the planet. Sort of like acne, constipation, teenaged angst, and poor driving habits. But then it’s hard to get behind this latter group as ‘stop the presses, hold the front page’ issues. More like slow news day content — no less widespread, no less distressing, but equally commonplace (read ‘widespresd’). Kind of like flu.

I recall my (much revered) statistics prof’s favoured annual lecture opener: ‘All heroin addicts drink milk!’ Followed by his well-honed treatise on the evils of confusing causal relationships (drinking bossy’s white nectar may not be the point of entry to a lifetime of hard drug abuse) with events that merely coexist with each other. It’s all in the spin. And the angst value. And it’s what (in old-speak) sells papers. To quote Bob (the prof), ‘let’s have a good look at the data — and not the presumption’. He could just as easily have said: ‘keep calm and carry on’ (i.e., don’t panic!!).

Easily overwhelmed by the media’s feeding frenzy, and it’s search for a good, global disaster, a few voices of rationality might be detected — if we listen very (very) hard. Cognitive scientist, Samuel Veissiere is quoted recently:

Covid-19 is turning out to be a remarkably intelligent evolutionary adversary. . . Ebola was a rather stupid virus, because it kills its host. The coronavirus is different: by exploiting vulnerabilities in human psychology it has already shut down many of our schools, crashed our stock market, increased social conflict and xenophobia, reshuffled our migration patterns, and is working to contain us in homogenous spaces where it can keep spreading. The bad news is that people living in densely populated areas are very likely to contract the virus. . . The good news is that most people won’t die of it.

A friend recently reposted the similarly reasoned position of a physician and infectious diseases specialist that certainly merits a re-repost:

I am not scared of Covid-19. What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world. I implore you all. Temper fear with reason, panic with patience and uncertainty with education.

So I suspect the reasoned position is somewhere between Chicken Little and Marcus Aurelius. Somewhere midway between the sky is falling and the stoic acceptance of the (real) father of cognitive rationality. A good helping of common sense would go a long way. As my (infinitely reasonable) educator friend advises: wash your hands to two full renditions of ‘Happy Birthday’. Certainly beats my usual pass ’em under the hot water tap and wipe ’em on your sleeve!

. . . my somewhat unorthodox middle name — a hat tip to my father, whose parents were sufficiently enamored of the letter to use it twice (Earle). But that’s another story. Firmly into my eighth decade, less mobile than in years past, and (equally firmly) in denial, I’ve grudgingly acknowledged a downturn in, well, just about everything. Hills are steeper and winds are stronger. What other possible explanations could account for the average speed of bike rides inching steadily south, the blow by’s by other cyclists on a disturbingly consistent basis, and the relentless (and remorseless) truth that attaches to the slide down the ‘leaderboard’ of Strava, the esoteric — another ‘E’ — app that tracks (and compares) the efforts of cyclists the world over.

‘E’ is also for ‘Electric’ — as in E-bike, the mostly dismissed and just plain dissed, two-wheeled vehicle of choice of those unfortunate enough to have had their driver’s license suspended and still needing to show up for work: the ‘pseudo motor bike’ with pedals (that were never used!) that evolved from the Solex (at left) and mopeds so popular in Europe. I recall penning a disdainful letter to a G & M columnist after she chronicled the ‘E-bike experience’ on a ‘cycling trip’ to Italy — pointing up, none too subtly, that you could celebrate the trip, but please spare the real bikers amongst us the indignity of calling what you did on said trip, ‘cycling’. Same country, a few years later, I experienced first confusion, then annoyance when the portly ‘tourist’ steadily gained, then passed me as I puffed up a long climb, he astride something that certainly looked like a bicycle (more or less, minus the edemic down-tube). Suffice it that my history with ‘E’ and bike was oxymoronic at best — the two did not belong in the same sentence.

Fast forward a half-dozen years. Karma being what it is (also relentless), one’s words are frequently fed for breakfast. The choice of ‘falling off the back’ — that delightful term applied to cyclists ‘going backwards’ as the rest of the pack pulls away and/or waiting for the windless day with perfect temperatures before venturing out on a flat route was, shall we say, hardly a choice.

But something quite wonderful was, in fact, happening during this same time of dereliction and discouragement: E-bikes became ‘legitimate’. Gone were the foot rests and kiddy pedals. Slimmed were the fat, battery-heavy down-tubes. Weight watchers had come to the E-bike as the bulky, awkward, heavy, and frankly ugly frames dropped pounds. Design and aesthetics found their way into functionality. The E road bike was born. My arrogant, cynical, holier-than-thou stance that had held sway for lo these five decades of road biking was won over, trumped by necessity and style. I could continue my sport of choice and do it with dignity.

Evidently I was not alone in this, my Damascene moment. The cycling population had aged right along with me. The (heretical) possibility that the shame attaching to ‘cheating’ with a pedal assist was just maybe not so — shameful, illegitimate. You Tube videos appeared, pitting ‘real’ bikes against their turbo-charged E counterparts, comparing fitness benefits, and championing the pro’s of joining a growing number of E-converts. One could look, feel, and perform ‘like they used to’, keeping pace and pushing the envelope out another few years. St. Paul meets Ponce de Leon.

But therein lies the moral quandary and yet another ‘E-word’ — Ethics. Who knew that this rejuvenative movement would, could cross swords with the Strava Police. A (very) brief history of said app. This free bit of GPS-driven software maps rides and sends real time ‘beacons’ to the home base — so no more ‘I thought you’d be home hours ago’. It generates enough stats to choke a very, very large horse. And — here’s the rub — it automatically records every single rider’s times over portions of road (‘segments’) from Aukland to Amulree, in Tuscany and Taiwan — and uploads same to ‘leaderboards’. With the addition of ‘age-group boards’ a few years back, I could bask in the radiant top 10 glory of all the 70 plus-er’s that had made that same journey!

So what’s the problem. Just ask Lance! A little human growth hormone as a chaser to my T-bone steak — get over it! The playing field, as it were, is no longer level. While I’m celebrating riding into a 30 KPH headwind, climbing a 9%-er without breaking (too much of) a sweat, I’m kicking all those diligent, purist thirty-somethings to the leaderboard curb. The howls (well, mostly UPPERCASE cries of foul) were very nearly audible. Enter ethics — never a particularly strong suit amongst cyclists (especially the pro’s). Painful though it might be, I’m now able to hit a button and impose my ‘better self’, switching from ‘ride’ to ‘E-bike ride’. Order is restored. And I can sleep at night. But it was so nice to be #1 and wear the yellow — if only for a moment!

Where would we be without our blessed acronyms? JND’s and TPT’s dominated the early days of grad school as Al Paivio (affectionately honoured by his students as ‘Mr. C’ — but that’s another story!) hammered the importance of psychophysics into our stubborn wee minds. Who knew that just noticeable differences and two-point thresholds would have spiritual relevance, lo these five decades later.

I floated a tentative experiment of another kind on this sunny, Sunday, March 1st morning: a return to the contemplative ‘said Eucharist’. This, the early, quiet, back to basics service predicated on the little red book (the BCP, not Chairman M’s manifesto) that had caught my attention as I checked in to Salisbury Cathedral in the early 2000’s after my forty-year sojourn in the wilderness. In keeping with everything else that’s gone ‘environmentally friendly’, the green BAS — Book of Alternate Services — is now the text. But it has the same meditative rhythm of its predecessor, crafted some four centuries ago.

Nineteen of us sat dotted around the pews of St. Jude’s. Harry, the celebrant, now in his 80th year, intoned his way thru’ the prescribed liturgy, pausing midway to insert his message for this day in the year’s early Lenten cycle. The annual ‘giving up for. . . ‘ plans had been crafted by most of us mid-week and, being only four days in, were making a serviceable start at sustaining our resolve for another five weeks. The usual candidates, chocolate and alcohol, had been earmarked for varying degrees of abstention ranging from Garrison Keillor’s ‘giving up giving up Scotch’ to flat out temperance; from Oscan Wilde’s proscription of temptation (‘the only way to deal with it, is to give in to it’) to slightly more draconian measures of self-denial.

The central theme of Harry’s text skillfully tied the season to the intention, Lent to temptation. It linked a period of self-reflection, and stock-taking to the scriptural account of the prototypical struggle, pitting the siren song of desire against resistance and resolve — the temptation of Christ.

So what of JND’s and today’s homily? To illustrate the relentlessness, cumulative nature, and subtlety of temptation, Harry introduced a metaphor: ‘the winter birds of Niagara’. This tale, even to a ‘Peninsula boy’ like myself, was news. In the chill months, the walls of mist rising from the Falls freeze, forming the cataract’s signature wintertime ice bridge. It seems that the ubiquitous and legion gulls, in search of a drink and oblivious to the calendar, continue to swoop into the gorge at the base of the rapids for a sip. Each successive dive adds a thin layer of vapour now freezing to the birds’ wings, insidiously building — until threshold is reached. Aerodynamics are trumped by ice and the birds plummet into the whirlpool.

The process is gradual, just barely noticeable at first — until the difference, the threshold between being airborne and earth- (or in this case, water-) bound is met. Harry likens the challenges, the temptations we face and that confront our resolve, to this cycle: a taste (or a sip) here, a keyboard click or a glance there. Building, expanding, displacing until. . .

A second parallel exists and further binds psychophysics to temptation’s prototype. As the story goes, Christ was at low ebb — 40 days of denial will do that! And the antagonist in the narrative applies the ‘layers’ subtly, starting with low stakes, a loaf of bread. What are a few crumbs, no harm here. (Or, if you’re a thirsty seabird, a sip of water.) The game intensifies moving to a literal ‘leap of faith’; and finally, to an ‘all this could be yours. . . ‘ scenario.

What would a good acronym be without an equation to ground it in application? Enter Weber. In this case:

JND = KI

Our ability to perceive a change in any sensory state (sound, taste, illumination, etc.) is a function of a ‘constant’ (K) multiplied by the intensity (I) of the stimulus. Think the irritating neighbour playing his tunes full bore at 1 a.m. He’s asked politely to ‘turn them down’; and straight-facedly maintains that he has — despite your experience that ‘nothing has changed’. The 120 decibel noise ‘objectively’ is now coming thru’ your wall at a mere 115 db. No JND for you! For the neighbour to find redemption (in your view) the amplifier knob would have to read 108 db’s or 120 minus the noise coefficient (.1) times the loudness (120) — before you’re going to invite him over for a beer and, in the spirit of this piece, forgive him.

On the other hand, you’re sitting in a quiet, open-concept office, concentrating. Over a few cubicles, your coworker starts a telephone conversation — a shift from 50 to 60 db — and you notice immediately (50 times .1 = 5 — more than sufficient to hit threshold)

I’ve speculated a bit about the ‘K value’ of temptation. In short, what’s it take for us to notice that we are being tempted. And equally, how ready are we to ignore the ‘thin edge’ — until we’re spinning around in some pretty icy water. No surprise that this ‘coefficient’ will be specific to each of our respective ‘achilles heels’ (our ‘spiritual sensory equipment’) and to the nature (intensity) of the ‘stimulus’. A tiny uptick in something we really crave is all it takes. A truckload of something we’re lukewarm about — no big deal.

For me it raised a couple of awarenesses: Lent as a time to reflect on our particular ‘vulnerabilities’; and a time to fine-tune our ‘sensitivities’. For the thirsty gull, if we can anthropomorphize for a minute, paying attention to water now, in this moment, as less friend and more threat and taking note that it might be time to flip on the de-icers before the next take off. Only 39 days to go . . . with Sunday’s off for good behaviour.