Yesterday on the radio, there was a report about the
current state of the economy (when is there not???). According to the story, “more than 330,000
people filed new claims for unemployment insurance benefits last week,” and
that is good news, because these numbers are at pre-recession levels. There is actually a technical term for this
phenomenon: froth. Apparently economists
build into their projections and prognostications a certain amount of
joblessness. We have now achieved “normal
froth.”
In my on-line dictionary, one of the definitions of
froth is triviality. And I think of my friend who was just laid off, and I know
that for that family, there is nothing normal or trivial about
unemployment. And I realize that we hear
these terms and the numbers that go with them and forget that every number is a
person, a real person, struggling in the day-to-day, out of work, and for some,
out of hope.
If I multiply my friend’s grief by 330,000, it is almost
overwhelming. I think when we/I am
confronted with huge calamities, I cannot take them in and so I ignore
them. But today, I am thinking about
330,000 tragedies, all playing out in someone’s life. And there
is nothing trivial about that….
