Turns Out, We Did Know, Then, What We Know Now...

It starts with a little test tube.

During a first season episode of the landmark drama, "The West Wing", some twenty years ago, now, a conversation takes place between C.J. Gregg, the White House Press Secretary and Josh Lyman, the deputy White House Chief of Staff.

Josh has been given an ID card that will give him access to an escape plan in the event of a nuclear attack and is struggling with the personal morality involved in realizing that, because of his rank in the executive branch pecking order, he has been designated for survival while many of his co-workers, his friends, even family actually have not. And those friends and family are almost sure to be sacrificed when, he, Josh, will be spared.

The conversation takes a poignant and profound turn when Josh offers this insight on how unprepared, even unaware, so many people are about how quickly life as they know it can be stunningly altered. Even ended.

".....It's not gonna be the red phone and nuclear bombs," Josh begins,   

"......It's gonna be this.... Smallpox has been gone for 50 years. No one has an acquired immunity. Flies through the air. You get it...you carry a ten-foot cloud around with you. One in three people die...

.... If 100 people in New York City got it, you'd have to encircle them with 100 million

vaccinated people to contain it. Do you know how many doses of smallpox vaccines exist

in the country? Seven.... 

.....If 100 people in New York City get it, there's gonna be a

global medical emergency that's gonna make HIV look like cold and flu season.....

....That's how it’s gonna be, a little test tube with a rubber cap that's deteriorating... A

guy steps out of Times Square Station. ... Smashes it on the sidewalk...Pshht...."

Witty punchline surfaced a few months ago and I find myself using it from time to time these days.

"remember....the first 15 minutes of every disaster movie is people rolling their eyes and clucking about how ridiculous the idea of the "impending catastrophe"is...."

Because, first, of course, denial, or, at least, its brutal cousin, mind numbing disbelief is pretty much always the immediate go-to in the human psyche when it comes to being confronted, even assaulted with disaster.

And psychologists almost surely have some clinical term or another to describe the inclination most of us have regarding that level of catastrophe.

Kind of a global destruction spin on the old fashioned "well, it's just a little lump....it can't be all that serious....if I ignore it, it'll just go away...."

We've all seen enough "big event catastrophe/disaster" movies by now, though, to be more than familiar with how it plays out.

There is the first hint that something just isn't quite right.

Cool heads and keen eyes realize that it's actually worse than that.

Those folks do their best to convince those in a position to do something about it that they need to...do something about it......

At this point, insert "eye rolling and clucking" about how ridiculous the idea of the "impending catastrophe" is.

And, then, the next thing you know.......

...either the volcano erupts or the earthquake begins or the tsunami appears...or there is a blinding flash of light and, on the horizon, a cloud of dust in the the unmistakable shape of a immeasurable mushroom rises......

....and eyes stop rolling and clucking ceases, replaced by eyes wide open in fear and panic, hysterical screaming....you know how the script reads. Feel free to fill in your own dramatic details.

There's a problem with Armageddon....or, more to the point, our consumer point of view conception of it.

It's bad enough that we roll our eyes and cluck our clucks and dismiss the little warnings until it gets to full blown volcano/earthquake/tsunami/nuclear blast status.

But, add to that, our very very naive notion that life altering, even ending, level disaster will only come in the form of full blown volcano/earthquake/tsunami/nuclear blast.

And that those little warning signs are the predicable, recognizable ones we've seen in hundreds of movies, give or take a Dwayne Johnson.

Possibly, even probably, as Josh pointed out, via the brilliant words written by Aaron Sorkin, it won't be red phones or nuclear bombs at all.

Possibly, even probably, it will all start with a little test tube.

A little test tube filled with bigotry, prejudice, hatred....fear of another and others because of their color or their religion or their gender....a little test tube with a rubber cap that's deteriorating....and some guy steps on to a stage at a "rally"....and stands behind a podium with a once upon a time sacred seal.....and for no better reason than his neurotic addiction to praise and worship and adoration....smashes it on the stage........and no one has an acquired immunity......so a thousand people get it....and spread it to a thousand more....who spread it to ten thousand more.......

...and the next thing you know.....

....explosive devices start showing up in mailboxes and on front porches......

Not a volcano...or earthquake.....or tsunami.....or blinding nuclear detonation in sight......

Just a little test tube.

Lying smashed to pieces.