An Emotional Framework for Understanding the End of the Pandemic

My earliest memories are connected by a sense of fear without the threat of harm. I remember being frightened by news stories, dark basements, and even a painting by a family friend. I was an imaginative kid, and these memories are ones of invented dread: A tabloid photo of a burning building once shook me up for a week, though I had never even seen a fire. In part, these made-up fears were the result of a lucky, protected childhood. But to the late British philosopher Richard Wollheim, whose newly re-released memoir, Germs, centers on this type of recollection, they also pointed to an early longing for the wider adult, or—as Wollheim often calls it—“outside” world.

Wollheim grew up inoverwhelmed his fear. Terror escorted him from routine to wonder.