I am as conflicted about how I should feel these days as perhaps I have ever been in my life. A mixture of pride, joy, a sense of goodwill, relaxation, fear, frustration, anger, disgust, amazement, and shock are all permeating through me at the same time. Not to sound boastful, but I don't get rattled too often. By that I mean, I'm usually pretty headstrong in whatever I might be feeling at any moment, with a strong sense of what I believe and the path I'm on at the time. But this whole Coronavirus thing has knocked us all for a loop. Nobody really knows how to feel. Hysteria and Panic have permeated our society in such a way as I've never seen, certainly in my lifetime. Nobody is thinking for themselves. Everyone is just sorta wondering around in a daze like sheep waiting to be told what to do next. And I've never found myself so unsure about how I'm supposed to approach each day.
Most of what we see on the news, in the media outlets, and on social media is pretty grim. It's statistic after chart after curve about how bad things are, and how bad they have yet to be, and how many people are dying every day. At the same time, one can find several examples of heroic behavior, happy moments in the simplest things, heartwarming acts of kindness and giving, the situation bringing out the best in people and the inherent goodness of humanity all over the world. But there's no pattern. The good and the bad is all mixed together on a daily basis.
Half the country believes our political leaders haven't done enough to curb this virus, and the other half thinks the government has far overreached their boundaries in prohibiting freedom and liberty of the general populace. And for every doctor who goes on TV and tells us the world is coming to an end, gazillions of people are going to die, and our entire healthcare system is going to be overrun, I can, at the same time, find an equal number of videos and stories of any number of healthcare officials who say the panic is way overblown, and that simple, basic precautions should be taken.
Personally, I've been accused of not being sensitive enough because people are dying, and also been praised for putting on my little Friday night concerts to provide a little relief from the craziness. Sometimes both by the same people!
It's madness. All of it. It really is. And I can't find any toilet paper.
Here's one thing I know: The numbers, and the data, have never been there to support the response we've put in place. Not ever. They've not come even close to matching a single projection -- both before the lockdowns, and during. The pro-quarantine crowd is going to claim victory. They're going to say it was because of the measures we put in place that kept the numbers from ballooning to such grim proportions. Some of them are going to claim the victory while at the very same time blaming our President for not doing enough -- which is, of course, absurd and downright moronic. Regardless, the data simply has never matched up. The projections have gone from mind-numbing proportions to now barely above the common flu, and the numbers have never caught up to it. The curve we were supposed to flatten never materialized. Sure, there were a couple of hotspots -- New York being the most prominent -- but otherwise, it doesn't exist, and never did. Hospitals weren't overrun. The triage field hospitals never got used and were torn down. Here in our own county, the hospitals are laying off workers as we speak because there simply is nothing for them to do. Along this whole trajectory, the numbers simply haven't reached the levels that warranted the response we gave it.
Here's something else I know: Killing off Americans and destroying lives by plunging them into financial ruin -- which is already happening -- to save others from dying from a foreign virus is not a net gain. People are dying and will continue to die on both sides of the issue. Choosing one over the other is not a win, and it's certainly not noble. Worse, taking a self-righteous position on one side or the other and condemning those on the other side for their views is not only wrong, its the worst kind of degenerate behavior. I've seen a lot of heartlessness in people's compassion the last few weeks and it's been very disconcerting.
I know people who have the virus. Some who are still really struggling with it. I also know people who are going to lose not only their jobs, but their businesses, and they may never recover from it. So whose side should I be on?
If I support those who are beginning to protest the lockdowns, then I'm an insensitive prick who doesn't care to watch people die. But I find a great deal of those who are against the protesters are people who still have to go to work every day and are still getting paid.
Let me be CLEAR: I wholly support and appreciate the first responder and healthcare workers. They are indeed true heroes. They chose this career path, to put themselves in harm's way on the front lines to help save the rest of us. They deserve every accolade they get, and they certainly deserve our deepest thanks, appreciation, and respect.
But this is where it gets dicey, and I'm sure to catch some flak: They work in the middle of this everyday. They are surrounded by sickness and death 24/7. It's all they see and experience. And being singularly focused on one particular issue can tend to blind one to what's going on in the outside world.
AND, they still get to go to their job everyday -- even if they would prefer not to -- and get a paycheck. In some instances, they're getting not only overtime, but hazardous pay as well.
So inasmuch as I cannot fathom what they must endure in their jobs on a daily basis, they cannot relate to the business owner that is watching his business go bankrupt and his life savings being flushed down the drain. They can't see the young family who are all now jobless and probably won't be able to buy groceries this week, let alone pay the rent or the mortgage. They don't know what it's like for the retiree who is watching his life savings and the only income they will have in the future being drained out of the stock market, with no hope of ever recouping those funds. They may not understand that while, yes, thousands are tragically dying from the virus, still millions more are at this very moment wondering how they're going to be able to feed their kids tomorrow.
I have dear friends who are nurses and doctors and emergency workers. If, God forbid, I should ever find myself in some form of danger, or sick with an illness, give me one them to stand by my side and take care of me. I will be forever grateful.
But I also have dear friends whose entire lives are slowing dripping away as we speak. They are at the brink of financial ruin and only God knows how they will be able to survive when we all emerge out the other side of this.
Try telling someone who has lost a loved one to this monster that they should be more concerned about the business around the corner. Then try telling that business owner who will be bankrupt by Monday and doesn't know how he's going to be able to take care of his family that he should be more sensitive to someone else who is sick.
Death by this virus is not the end-all-be-all determining factor here. I'm sorry, it's just not. Not because every single life isn't precious, but because as a society, we have never, ever, treated it as such. We still drive cars every day, even though tens of thousands die every year in car accidents. We have always packed ourselves tightly into public arenas and stadiums even though the flu contagion kills tens of thousands of people every year. We still stuff ourselves full of sugar and fat, even though hundreds of thousands die of heart disease and diabetes every year. We still allow abortion to be legal, even though it kills millions of babies every year.
And all that is just in the United States. Every year.
So it seems a bit disingenuous that so many have suddenly become the keeper of humanity now with Covid-19 when the harsh truth is, they simply never cared about their brother before all this.
But then, if we're desperately honest with ourselves, it's not our brother we're really concerned about, is it? Could it be we're only really concerned for ourselves? It makes us feel better about ourselves when we say we're protecting our elderly and the less healthy amongst us but not passing the virus along to them. But is that our real concern? Is it possible our real concern is we don't want to catch it and die ourselves? That's just human nature. But we don't like to admit such things because it makes us look and feel bad, so we have to cloak it in some sort of righteous dignity.
I believe people's general concern for others is genuine, I do. And we all want to support causes that benefit the greater good. But there is no way we would put up with allowing our government to arbitrarily strip us of our rights if we didn't think we were saving our own butts in the process.
Cynical? Perhaps. But if you're being honest -- truly honest -- I would defy you to tell me I'm wrong.
Look, I don't have all the answers. I wouldn't begin to pretend I do. Most of this is just my rant amidst all the craziness. But I do know that most of this craziness is craziness we've created ourselves. Whether you agree with the mitigation or not, what the government has done in shutting everything down is not, at it's core level, anywhere near legal. And we've allowed them to strip us of rights without so much as even questioning all the reasons. People have died as a result of our going about our everyday lives since the beginning of mankind, and that certainly isn't going to stop now even after this virus is over.
Instead of dealing with this thing the way we've dealt with virtually every other health crisis in our history, we've allowed our way of life to be taken away and it has created more fear and chaos -- and ultimately, death -- than the virus alone could ever have hoped to.
Things got back to "normal" after H1N1. Things got back to "normal" after MERS, and ZEKA, and SARS. Heck, things even got back to "normal" after the Spanish Flu 100 years ago. You can guarantee that things will never get back to "normal" after this. Because we've fundamentally "changed" what normal is now. We allowed it to be changed without any input from us. To our detriment, most likely.
But we have an election coming up in November. And we can change out our elected officials to ones who will be more attuned to what we want.
If only we have the guts to do so. After watching how people were so willingly led around like sheep during this pandemic, I question whether or not we do.
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