Is This 2020 Or Year 1, A.V.?

My sense is that people are adapting to this crisis but I'm not so sure that we can grasp the magnitude of what's happening in real time. We don't know how this story ends, so we can't fully appreciate the chapter we're in. Is it short or long, a red herring or a major twist? Is it a crisis -- a short term disruption to be overcome -- or a fundamental change in the way we live? 

Now that I'm out of the city I spend most of my time on the pieces of personal life that need to carry on. Kids brushing teeth, preparing lunch, feeding the cat. Being away from work, my world has shrunk and contains fewer obligations. 

Virus living is simple, for now.  

When I was a kid, I always wanted it to rain during the summer because then there was less work on the farm and I could stay home and just do whatever I saw fit. In a small town this meant wandering around outside, building structures in trees then tearing them down, getting dirty and not caring, watching tv, having no schedule. As long as the fields were wet I was free.

I'm feeling a little of that right now. Time without tasks.

I'm from a rural area originally but over 25 years I've grown used to the pace of the city. Schedules are constructed and outsourced services assumed. Now I'm remembering the biggest difference between rural and urban living. In the country, the schedule more closely resembles sunrise / sunset, and one assumes self-reliance because who else will cook dinner if not your own family?  

So I'm having these flashbacks. But, every day I experience a brief moment when I realize again how insanely unusual 2020 is; it's not really a throwback to simpler times. It will continue to change and I will need to be very comfortable with uncertainty. 

We're going to move from the "lockdown" stage of this to the "restart" stage at some point. No one knows when, and no one knows what that will look like. I hope life A.V. (After Virus) resembles life B.V.   

But it could get harder, or weirder -- more for city folk than for people who live in open space. Too soon to know. 

Investment Thoughts

The uncertainty in the stock market reflects the uncertainty of the economy's "restart". The optimists are counting on a return to 2020. There could be good, semi-permanent news about the demise of the virus, and we get back to work and airlines restaurants hotels bounce back. Soon. 

The pessimists say we're not returning to 2020, we are living in Year 1, A.V., which will be a profound period like the Great Depression. 

I'm not a pessimist. I'm somewhere in the middle. Maybe this is the year of the virus and 2021 will be a modern renaissance, rediscovering what we loved about the past in a new way. With annual vaccines because the past could kill you. 

Thus my macro view of the market is this is a bear market rally because it's too soon to know when the renaissance will begin. I could be wrong and it would be great to be wrong. I'm invested as much as I'd like to be considering current risk factors.

What I'm Reading: Looking for a new book ... 

Stoic / Mindful Thought: Let us cultivate our own garden. -- Candide, by Voltaire