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Zebras Not Horses: The New American Normal
Funny story. Early one morning last week, the wife and I were awakened around 6am by what sounded like an enormous explosion, followed by a burst of light. It speaks to the collective jumpiness of the current American moment that as New Yorkers, immediately flashing back to 9/11, the first thought for both of us was that a bomb had gone off.
We leapt out of bed and went to the window — not having paid attention during those duck-and-cover drills in the ’50s, before we were born — and soon heard more explosions and additional flashes.
Pretty soon we realized it was nothing but an especially intense bout of thunder and lightning. But it took us a while.
As I went about my business on the day that followed, I mentioned the experience to several friends, all of whom told me they had the same exact experience. All of them.
When it comes to diagnosis, medical students are taught to live by Occam’s razor: that the simplest explanation is usually correct. As the maxim goes, when you hear hoofbeats, your first thought should be horses, not zebras. So what does it say when your first instinct upon hearing a loud boom is “bomb,” not “thunder”?
It says you’re living in fraught and anxious-making times.
