The moth was fluttering its wings wildly, but it couldn’t take off. It kept trying and trying but still nothing. It couldn’t fly and, I feel, it foresaw its death.

T.S. Eliot once wrote of the “objective correlative”: a writer describes a situation in such a way as to evoke a particular mood. I’d like, then, to extend his conception so that it covers collective moods as well.

In the moth, we can see collective anxiety and, above all, struggle. When I tune in, I hear struggle: a realtor grasping at a new client for fear of never having enough; an old couple snowed in and worried about the power going off; a man on drugs stumbling down the street; a shy handyman who doesn’t return one’s gaze; a couple of dogs anxious in the face of change; a knowledge worker seeking to show that you can’t keep taking her for granted; an Airbnb host who reacts with prickliness; and countless more.

We can do nothing for the moth, but what might we do for one another?