We are all dealing with a threat that few of us have the knowledge or skills to combat directly. Helpless dread is an unbearable feeling. What do we do?

Fear is meant to affect our systems. We are to freeze or energetically deal with palpable physical threats that are the focus of fear. Our bodies feel some degree of fear now — of the virus, the illness, the uncertainty or the socio-economic upheaval. Yet, no physical flight, fight or freezing can help us here. We are to keep calm and carry on. Still the fear acts on our system. And it can show in our thinking patterns.

Denial is a sort of a mental freeze. We conserve our energy by stating that the problem is not that big or perhaps doesn’t even exist. Conserving our energy, not stressing excessively, can serve a purpose, keep us cool. Sadly, it hasn’t remained that simple. We’re seeing fellow citizens become so attached to their denial that they’re expending energy to prove how much they deny. People have congregated together, carelessly or carefully, to show their disregard for caution. Some have sickened or even died as a result. Their illness endangered, burdened and grieved their loved ones. A natural reaction gone too far.

Sometimes people are rather energized by fear. Good effects of this energy has been the community support organizations springing up, the creation of new ways to be neighborly and the flood of lovingly sewn cloth masks. It seems to me that most people have channeled their energy within this measure. Sadly we’ve also seen some frenetic extremes: food hoarding; bleach gargling; fistfights for toilet paper. In a panicky desire to feel control over uncontrollable circumstances, some energized minds have latched onto conspiracy theories. Some have acted on them.

People have attacked individuals of Asian heritage, burned cellphone towers and publicly accused everyone else of manufacturing bioweapons. I suppose even a scapegoat as large as a cellular network or a nation could feel less overwhelming than a random, invisible, mutable virus; the chain of cause and effect seems simpler. We all like to strike a blow at feeling helpless. But that’s not where these blows ultimately landed. People have been hurt. A reaction gone way too far.

Why have we not been taught more about how our fear works — and how we might make it work for us? Fear, like all of our emotions, is information about our situation and should be heeded as such. And fear, like all information, needs to be fact-checked and put in context.

As much as we would like to take direct action and make this threat go away, we don’t yet have the tools to effectively fight this novel coronavirus. In the current context, our success will be just making as little happen as possible. The reactive part of our brains — ask your kids about “Survival State” — can’t understand this lack of action; but our problem-solving Executive State can. We can fortify our executive state with good exercise, good music, deep breathing, prayer, meditation, dance, family hugs, all those arts and crafts you excel at and other techniques you already have. Keep calm and carry on.

There’s yet one more active inactivity that may help. Foldingathome.org is a distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics. Volunteers let software run simulations on their personal computers that can help medical researchers find the weak points of the coronavirus. It’s running in the background of my computer with no harm done. We can even form local teams, letting the Pendleton-Hermiston rivalry ride again — for a good cause. Check it out at https://foldingathome.org/covid19.