It has been said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” That’s almost certainly true, as motherhood is not very hard to prove, unlike fatherhood, which would likely require a DNA sample.

Now, I don’t know who the father of invention is, but I think COVID-19 is as likely a suspect as any. I mean, if it is capable of making you pay good money to have a swab crammed into your nose so far that it tickles your brain, then I think it’s capable of siring some decent innovation. Amirite?

So where do we find these bastard children of COVID-19?

The easy answer is: IN THE FUTURE. Which sounds a lot better if you say it in a mystical voice and swirl your hands around like you’re trying to confuse a mosquito. The future. Where everything is possible. Like paying rent.

It’s comfortingly possible, even if it isn’t actually gonna happen.

 

WHAT IS THIS INNOVATION OF WHICH YOU SPEAK?

Let’s start with the obvious: a vaccine. The magic bullet that allows us to laugh haughtily in the face of COVID-19.

“Come at me, you swine flu, I am not afraid, because I have many dead copies of you swimming in my bloodstream, warding you off like garlic to a vampire! HA!”

Of course, virologists everywhere are still grappling with figuring out how COVID-19 actually works, or even if you can possibly vaccinate against it. There’s still a whole lot of science for them to science out. I suspect it will get easier when they no longer have to work from home. That lab in their garage is a little on the ratchet side, I’m afraid.

Let’s just assume that science will science its way through the science and science us up a super-awesome vaccine that makes us impervious to COVID-19, COVID-20 through 43, and while we’re at it, sticks, stones and bullets as well. Why not. This is the FUTURE we’re talking about. I heard they can do ANYTHING there.

 

WHO’S ZOOMING WHO?

We don’t have to rely upon the future for all of our innovation, either. Apparently, now was once the future for some ancient, primitive race of man, which led to the invention of Zoom, saving the entire world from the horrors of Skype.

(shudder).

Zoom has not only allowed many of us to continue working without having to breathe each other’s nasty, disease-ridden air, but it also allowed our precious youth to continue their schooling and bother someone else for a while.

Simply by turning every meeting into the opening for “The Brady Bunch” Zoom has almost instantly taken hold of our zeitgeist, and now it refuses to let go.

And well it should not. After all, no other tool has allowed us to realize our lifelong dream of attending a business meeting without wearing pants. Until Zoom, you had no way of actually muting that person who always has to speak at every single meeting despite having nothing at all to say. Zoom even allows you to add a background to your talking head image so you can pretend you’re attending the meeting from a sunny tropical beach rather than from the toilet, where you have to be in case the meeting runs too long.

Zoom is the epitome of American innovation in the face of a crisis. Even if it has been around for 8 years without anyone actually noticing.

 

HEY, THIS BOMB IS TICKING

Innovation has a way of climbing inside your mind, mucking about in all of the dark, cobwebby corners, and then surreptitiously making off with something that you didn’t even know was in there. Like a social platform that allows your children to make money by exploiting the naiveté of other children. Wait, WHAT?

It’s called TikTok, and it was conceived as a way to share homespun dance or singing videos with the same ease that lets boomers share racist memes on Facebook. As such, it was a natural hit with families in quarantine who wanted to pretend that someone was actually watching them lip-synch their way through a music video that really existed mostly in their mind.

It also allows for currency to be earned in the same way likes are earned, which kind of makes it the digital equivalent of a strip club.

But hey, innovation is innovation. And this is a serious virus, so we are technically allowed to take desperate measures. Dr. Fauci said so.

 

INNOVATION AND OUTOVATION

The thing about innovation is that you don’t know where it’s gonna show up for real. You can search out “areas ripe for innovation” like, gee, I dunno…HEALTHCARE? But the truth is that it works in mysterious ways, just like the woman in that song by U2.

As the world lurches onward with people still trying to figure out how COVID-19 has totally messed up their lives and everything they ever thought was true about the nature of existence, we can only take heart in knowing that some smart, ambitious, and cash-hungry people out there are going to keep on innovating. They can’t help it. Innovators gonna innovate.

But what we can do is take solace in knowing that we have, as a species, managed to rise above all sorts of challenges by learning, adapting, and inventing.

And when those things don’t come to us, we can always dance. 

The times, they are a-changing. Don’t fret. We’re here to help you a-change with them. Or, at least, to listen to why that shit is not gonna fly with you and your world. We are good listeners. And we’re here. For you.