I have been reading more about the economic changes due to coronavirus and am getting more concerned every day. I read This is how an Economy Dies this morning. Large corporations have cash on hand to survive this recession, even depression. They have cash to gobble up smaller, struggling organizations. Small businesses have on hand roughly a month's worth of savings. The stimulus package may offer them a bridge, but how soon are people really going to go back to shopping at brick-and-mortar stores? This statement sums it up pretty well "In the end, what will be left in the wreckages of such an economy is just a handful of mega corporations controlling most of the economy". I believe this will be an opportunity for mega corporations to consolidate market share, increase profits, and buy mid-sized businesses at bargain-basement prices. This could accelerate us into autocracy by corporations. I hope this is not true: 

"​When societies go through shocks which are allowed, through negligence and folly and failure, to leave entire classes of people suddenly, permanently poorer — then democracy tends to die, too. Think of the Weimar Republic. Think of Soviet Russia becoming Putinist Russia. Think of…modern day America. Trumpism was a direct, predictable consequence of the implosion of the American middle class. Coronavirus is likely to accelerate America’s implosion into autocracy."

I am not buying all the positivity about us "hitting the top of the curve" indicating that we are turning a corner on this pandemic in the United States. I also don't believe it is a good idea to talk about this as a positive sign that we could open for business again. The reason I don't believe that is because of the lack of information and the amount of misinformation: 

1. We have only tested .69% of the population for Coronavirus. Even really sick people with all the symptoms are not able to be tested because of our inadequate response in testing scale.
2. Global and US positive rates have gone up daily for the last three days. There is just too little data to describe this as the "top of the curve". Not sure where this finding is coming from as it doesn't reflect the actual counts from open COVID-19 research data. 
3. There is new evidence that we are significantly under-counting the number of deaths and new cases. 

There are beautiful acts of kindness and compassion happening - with the dying, with essential workers, with families. There are increasing rates of domestic violence. There is huge economic uncertainty. There is indifference and ego within US leadership, limiting our ability to respond. There is disfunction within our supply chains, potentially forcing de-centralization of PPE, energy and food production. It doesn't seem right that we can predict that we are "turning the corner". 

This is a legitimate question that many are asking. Some are asking it from a macro-economic perspective because they are investors who want to get the bull running again. Others are asking from a much more personal perspective because they lost their jobs, they are watching their retirement plan drop in value, or they need to feed their kids or get them in a safe environment such as school. No matter what, there will be massive economic impact globally and personally from this pandemic. A better question could be - "When will we know how many people are sick in the United States?" It implies more compassion for the sick, the families of the deceased, the workers on the front lines. This question might be better as the answer is necessary before "when can we open up America again?". Unfortunately, we can't answer this due to our inadequate response to this pandemic. We are woefully behind on testing by losing almost the whole month of February and barely starting to get it together by the end of March with a patchwork of local self-organization. This is all well-documented in How the Coronavirus became an American Catastrophe. 

On March 20th, a friend who is a nurse shared the mixed messaging that was coming from Iowa health officials on testing when Iowans were being denied testing with the messaging of "not everyone needs to be tested" which I believe is disingenuous as it is hiding the broader truth and obscuring the real problem. A better message could have been - "...we only have Y tests available per day and we have to prioritize. Given your current symptoms, you do not meet the cutoff for our prioritization. We hope to remediate this problem soon by X date but unfortunately this is what we have to do until we get more..." A message like that may create more empathy for the situation and highlights the root challenge of us not being able to effectively ramp testing services and kits. Note that as of this morning, only 4,673 tests have been performed in Iowa with 298 positives and 3 deaths. Since we are restricting testing so much, we can only see a tiny surface area of risk (in this case, 4,673/3,150,000 = 0.1%). 

When you look at the broader United States, you have only 801,416 tests given (or 0.2% visibility, self-selected to the most sick) and a positive finding in 122,166 people which creates a 15.3% positive rate. Since we are only testing the most sick, let's make an assumption that the actual positive rate if we did random sampling would be 25% of that which would lead to a 3.8% positive rate. This would lead to a rough estimate of 12 million affected in the US. If you use existing death rate percentages you get a range of 219,000 using the current US death rate to 1,250,000 assuming system-collapse death rate of 10%. If you use the global death rate of 4.65%, the estimate would be 581,724. This range is a terrible range and is increasing over the last week. The range is also tightening as US death rates are increasing.  

Testing rates are ramping up. California was woefully behind last week and has now ramped up significantly but still way behind. Faster test kits, more test kits, and more coordination in the distribution of test kits seem to be one of the most important things we can do to make good decisions about opening up America again. I don't agree with politicians who pick a date out of thin air (e.g. "Easter") since the data is dynamically changing and must be analyzed on at least a daily basis.
on by X date but unfortunately this is what we have to do until we get more

It has been six days since my last blog when I expressed that I hope the pandemic will not increase separate-ness in the world. Since then, I have been watching the news of Italy, New York, Spain, and the harrowing stories of health care workers on the front lines talking about running out of PPE, ventilators, and surges on emergency rooms. I am unable to reconcile those stories with the hopeful picture painted by most politicians and most of the media so I decided to just start tracking trends myself using publicly available data. Here is some simple modeling of potential impact using today's data: 

Metrics as of March 25th, 2020, 8:42 PM PT

• Tests given in the US = 472,820
• Positive tests in the US = 64,180
• Current deaths in the US = 900
• Positive hit rate in US = 13.57%
• Death rate in US = 0.19%
• Population of US = 327,000,000
• Estimated positive cases using current hit rate = 44,386,574
• Estimated positive cases using 25% of current hit rate = 11,096,644
• Estimated deaths - US - current death rate = 84,489
• Estimated deaths - US - current global death rate (4.5%) = 2,005,144
• Estimated deaths - US - system collapse (10%) = 4,438,657

If the current death rate holds, which it won't, and we estimate with current hit rate, then we will have 85K deaths, a terrible number that is hard to comprehend and 7 times the annual number of flu deaths. Since we know that we are self-selecting tests to the most sick and assume 25% of that, you still have 21K deaths on the low end. I believe that estimate is much too conservative, however, since our death metrics will trail 1-2 weeks behind the positive test case metrics. 

If we use the global death rate with the current hit rate in the US, we get 2 million deaths. If we estimate system collapse death rate of 10% (what is happening in Italy), then you get 4.4 million deaths. If we apply the same 25% ratio due to self-selecting only the sickest to get tests, then we still have deaths from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people in the US alone. 

I sure hope that our measures of self-isolation will stop the exponential rise of cases and deaths and we are able to bring these estimates much closer to the thousands, not millions. I will try to update this regularly with the latest testing data. 

Times have changed. Society will change. In a short period of time, we see massive business, societal and family disruption. I am grateful to be able to work from home and still be effective. My heart and gratitude goes out to the health care workers, security teams, people on the manufacturing line, the drivers, the cooks, the bartenders, the small business owners that are provide continuity to my life and business. I wish them the best. 

Cases are doubling in the United States every four days. We are at 13,690 cases in the US, 200 deaths, and only 103,945 tests given. We don't know the surface area because we are testing so little due to our aging and inefficient systems. We testing the most sick, who are exhibiting symptoms while asymptomatic folks are carrying the virus to new areas and people. There will be significant economic impact and small businesses will file bankruptcy. I believe the health, societal, privacy and security impacts will be even more impactful. I believe we are learning from Italy and China, not yet competent in our response. There is time for retrospective later, we should focus on response now.

I hope we do not use this situation to create further separate-ness between us. I believe we can create more one-ness from this. I see parents spending more time with their kids and others spending less time because they are on the front lines. I see neighbors and team members supporting each other. I see anxiety about the future and good people being creative and figuring it out. 

I have been working from home for about two weeks now out of an abundance of caution. I am grateful for the ability and opportunity to have a job that allows me to do this. In fact, my company starting mandating it as of March 12th. I was getting some cabin fever and decided to take a short overland camping trip in the truck. I picked Liebre Mountain up by Gorman and packed up the truck for an overnight, wet trip as it has been raining for four days. Only took an hour to get to the trailhead. Then it was a beautiful switchback unimproved road for about six miles to the top of the ridge-line. 

Once at the ridge-line, it got really windy and was raining sideways. I stepped out for a minute to check out some camping spots and it got cold quickly! I went to Bear Camp but it was so windy I decided to move on to Sawmill Campground. Bear Campground is definitely worth checking out some other time as it has some cool tucked away sites and is right next to the Pacific Crest Trail. Gotta get back there sometime. 

Sawmill campground turned out to be cold, windy, and rainy but it was my last option so I set up camp and tucked myself into the tent to see if the rain would die down. I sat there for a couple hours, writing in my journal, watching Netflix, and trying to warm my toes up in my sleeping bag. At about 4 PM I checked the weather report which told me that it was only getting worse. I made the decision to come home and hang with my family rather than sitting in a cold tent for 12 hours in the darkness. Great idea as I was able to get a little adventure in, was able to test the truck, and still able to spend the night with my family. 

The ride out was really pretty as the sun came out and lit up the valley. I had a beautiful drive down. The trail was not technical but did have a lot of rock and tree fall, running water, and huge puddles. The trail is washing out pretty bad in this recent rain but it never felt unsafe. I only saw one other person ( in a Jeep of course) on the mountain. The campsites were empty, the roads were empty and the freeways were free sailing. In these crazy times, it is good to remind ourselves that there are some amazing places out there that are being under-appreciated right now. Get outside and have some fun! 

I am re-reading The Mind Illuminated again in order to reinvigorate my practice for the new year. I really needed to hear this passage again and actually listened to it about ten times in a row to really get it: 

"Awakening from our habitual way of perceiving things. how we understand things requires a profound shift in our intuitive understanding of the nature of reality. Awakening is a cognitive event. the culminating insight in a series of very special insights called vipassana. This climax of the progress of insight only occurs when the mind is in a unique mental state called samatha. Samatha and vippassana are both generated by stable attention (samadi) and mindfulness (sati). Although it is possible to cultivate either samatha or vipassana independently of one another, both are necessary for awakening.

Samatha has five characteristics:

1. Effortlessly stable attention (samadhi)
2. Powerful mindfulness (sati)
   
3. Joy
4. Tranquility
5. Equanimity

"The complete state of samatha results from working with stable attention and mindfulness until joy emerges. Joy then gradually matures into tranquility, and equanimity arises out of that tranquility.  A mind in samatha is the ideal instrument for achieving insight."

These are the definitions provided by John Yates:

• samatha - tranquility or calm-abiding 
• vippassana - insight into the true nature of reality that transforms our view of ourselves and our reality.
  
• samadhi - concentration or stable attention
• sati - mindfulness

This was a great reminder of the steps necessary to progress to awakening. I have been focused on samadhi for a couple years now and less focused on sati. I will adjust my practice to cultivate samatha by combining sati and samadhi.

I love this time of year. People slow down and spend time with each other. We like to get together with family in different places every year and enjoy good food, conversation and sports. This year we spent our time in Newport Beach, hanging out right on the beach. It is fantastic. We have a volleyball court right in front of us, a pretty good surf break, and beautiful sunsets every night. 

I watched the kids play with their cousins, learning quickly, and creating joy. It is a beautiful thing to see. They are in flow states when playing on the sand, wheeling around, running, throwing, and diving. Kind of like a kite in the wind. I have been reading "Mapping Cloud Nine" which brings together psychology (back to William James) to neuroscience, psychedelics, and meditation. The book describes how humans have described "flow" states throughout history. He references "Altered Traits" regarding meditation and neuro-plasticity. Meditation produces permanent changes to the brain. Even a small number of hours of compassion meditation are enough to change emotional response and focus. There is a cool concept in there about flow states reducing pre-frontal lobe activity, which contributes to a loss of self. This is similar to the loss of self that meditation and psychedelics can cause and brings together a couple hundred years of research into a cohesive journey. 

I normally don't celebrate birthdays much. I do enjoy a day of little effort, lots of family, and time with my kids. This year, however, I decided that I wanted to challenge myself by walking 50 miles through the High Sierra and asked some close friends if they wanted to join me. They may not have known what they were getting into as five of my good friends showed up. We met mostly in Los Angeles and Fresno and used our cabin as base camp as we planned and packed the night before the trip. We hit the trailhead at 7 AM and started with motivation and heavy packs. 

With our sense of humors (senses of humor?) we started climbing up over the first hill. We struggled and the struggle was just beginning. We powered through the first four miles pretty well and we had planned on doing 14.5 the first day in order to stay on track for the fifty mile loop we had planned. We collapsed at each water stop, enjoying a beautiful river where I discovered a giant blister had already developed on my big toe as I dipped my tired feet into the icy cold water. The trail went through fir forest interspersed with beautiful alpine meadows and then opens up to the exposed canyon with the trail carved out of the granite walls. 

When we got to Bearpaw Meadow at 10.5 miles, none of us would be able to continue on to Hamilton Lake, four miles and 1200 cumulative feet above us. We camped there for the night and learned about our new gear purchased for this trip. Licking our wounds, we agreed that we modify the trip to be an out and back. There was no way we would be able to finish 12.5 miles per day through more technical terrain at higher altitude. ​

Day 2 - Hamilton Lake
I kept promising my friends that Hamilton Lake was just around the corner (really four miles away, 400 feet down, cross a river, 800 feet up). I bet Kory that the view was better at Hamilton Lake and that we should get there quickly to enjoy it. He didn't believe it as the view along the way was pretty spectacular. The High Sierra Trail is one of the nicest backpacking trails I have ever hiked. Huge granite walls, waterfalls, forests, and meadows make the view amazing. The hike down to Mehrten creek was easy, the hike up was harder... 

After you pass Mehrten creek bridge, you start climbing to Hamilton Lake. About a mile below the lake, you come across a waterfall cascading into the valley several hundred feet. You have to navigate carefully out onto the ledge, avoiding slipping into the stream and falling to your death spectacularly. Once there, you can put your feet in the icy cold water and filter water as it rushes over the edge. This spot is beautiful and I remember telling the guys about it as I remembered it from when my brother, Tim, and I had done this backpacking trip in the early 2000s. I forgot to mention to them how hard this part of the hike was! 

We arrived at Hamilton Lake early in the afternoon and there were already several campers taking prime spots. We ended up with some pretty epic spots overlooking the lake. We were still sore from the previous day and took the opportunity to jump in the lake as soon as we got our tents pitched. 

Day 3 - Back to the forest
We mostly slept well at the lake and wanted to get some mileage in early to get the best campsite past Bearpaw Meadow so that we didn't have a 10.5 mile trip on day four. Jon and Kory stuck around for a couple hours to fish and pack up. Emmett and Jayson took off early and Matt and I took off half an hour after. We agreed to meet at Bearpaw Meadow so we didn't get too separated. Going downhill was fun and fast. The technical terrain and my trekking poles blended together as I tick-tacked down the mountain quickly to get down to Mehrten creek. The beauty of this trail was more noticeable coming down as I wasn't exhausted on the uphill. After Mehrten creek, you ascend about four hundred feet before the trail flattens and follows the curve of the granite walls for a couple miles. Beautiful and treachorous, there are points where the plants conspire to push you towards the edge and waterfalls make the ground slippery. I found my hip hurting during this section because I had been leaning towards the wall just in case I tripped, I would fall uphill, not off the ledge! This part of the trail definitely keeps you awake and aware even when you are exhausted and takes a mental toll. 

Our campsite had a beautiful swimming hole and also a fire pit which we thoroughly enjoyed. It lacked sunshine so we were pretty cold coming out of that swimming hole and the fire was great. ​We ate really well that night and went to bed around nine PM in one of the most beautiful campsites I have ever seen. 

Day 4 - Back to Snivelization
Unfortunately, everything comes to an end and we walked the eight miles out to the truck not saying much to each other and split up across the trail. I realized that I hadn't really spent enough time enjoying the forest and meadows and became blissful walking through those last few miles knowing that I would soon go back to work. I was excited to see my family who I hadn't seen for a couple weeks and also trying to enjoy these last few miles. As we were on the last mile or two, we starting seeing a lot of incoming hikers. The most amazing thing was the smells. Passing them on the trail, you could smell their washing machine detergent, underarm deodorant, and the food they had for breakfast. It was kind of amazing and immediately snapped us back to civilization. We joked about the "noobs" entering the trail because of how much we had grown and learned during the trip. Every day was a challenge with several rewards. I learned that I can backpack in a lightweight way and still be comfortable on the trail and at camp. Bringing the chair was a great idea. It added a pound and a half but made things much more enjoyable. Some other gear that was amazing includes the Jetboil Flash, Osprey 55L pack (which I didn't adjust until day 2 unfortunately), and my Big Agnes 1 Person tent. Amazing stuff. 

I used to enjoy doing epic trips like this myself... Over the years, I have learned how much more enjoyable they are with good friends. We shared a lot of laughs, some pain, and some amazing experiences that we will always have together. I am infinitely grateful to my family and my friends for supporting this trip and especially to Emmett, Matt, Jayson, Jon, and Kory for taking on the adventure. We piled out of the truck at the cabin and were met with love from Kerri, Boden and Ayden and several other guests. It was really amazing and my bucket is full. As I have gone back to work, I am thinking about how soon I can get back to the woods. 

I went to the Pause Float Studio yesterday for my first ever sensory deprivation tank experience. The place was fantastic... Even though it was on a busy street, it was quiet inside with relaxing meditation pillows and benches. The woman who was working there asked me about my experience with tanks (none) and gave me a great overview of what to expect and how to operate the tank. The tank was huge, there was a shower and the lighting was relaxing. I took a shower to rinse off and jumped right in the tank and closed the door. There is a short introduction followed by music (think new age meditation music). I put ear plugs in, I closed the door, turned off the light, and closed my eyes. Right away I felt like I was floating upwards like I was going to bounce off the ceiling. The support of the salt water felt like it was lifting me up. I focused on my breathing which helped me center. I had several subtle distractions including thinking about work, being annoyed by the music, and hearing my breathing really loudly due to the ear plugs and water causing it to amplify in my skull. Then, I turned the music off after maybe fifteen minutes. That's when things became amazing...

The lack of music exposed all the other stuff that we don't notice as we walk the world every day. The volume of my breathing was incredibly loud. My heart beating in my ears was the next thing I noticed. I also noticed that my breathing would "skip" with each heart beat which probably happens all the time but I just don't notice it. After a few minutes, I could hear a buzz which sounded like machinery or a truck at a distance. I eventually realized it was coming from my ears and was probably the residual noise pollution I had consumed over the last days and weeks. I was so amazed by all this noise going on that I kept losing my object of meditation and coming back to it. Being able to fully engage in a breath was amplified by the water. At one point when I had my hands behind my neck, I swear I could hear the blood rushing through my carotid artery. 

The remaining, maybe, forty minutes were a bit of a blur as a floated in blackness, focused on my breathing. A couple times I felt the wall against my hand or leg and pushed away to realize there was no wall there. I decided to move around a little bit and released tension in my hips, my neck, and my chest. A large breath caused my vertebra to crack and I could hear it clearly in the water. I could feel joints opening up, muscles relaxing, and my body unfolding to a more natural posture and spaciousness. Before I knew it, the light slowly came on and the hour was over! There was a gap of what felt like twenty minutes that I don't really remember. I slowly came back to reality, opened the door, showered, and walked out. There was a nice pot of lavender tea and a quiet, dark room to sit in while processing the real world again. I ended up walking three miles home and my legs felt amazing. I still feel the after-effects today. My heart rate is low, my breathing calm, and I am just more relaxed than normal. My joints also still feel really good. Definitely going to try this again and maybe make it part of my regular routine.