I am having a challenging time this evening. I’ve been doing fine up to now, but today has been very difficult. So in the spirit of fighting against that Instagram-filter blog-my-perfect-life thing, I though I’d just talk about it. Plus writing has always been a good way for me to deal with strong emotions and hey, this way I get a two-fer. (Don’t worry though, I won’t blog when I get really upset because when I get REALLY upset I get pretty incoherent and need like fat sharpies and paper to deal with that.)
When FDR said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” I always thought he meant that cowardice would turn us into pussies. After all, he was dealing with the depression and runs on banks and looming international conflict. So, if we’re fearful, we lose and therefore we should be afraid of that.
But recently I understand that statement to be literal. Fear is what is scary. The fear that’s all around us is terrifying and has second order effects that make things more scary than the thing that started the fear in the first place. People being afraid en masse are worth fearing.
There’s no toilet paper in the stores right now. I think you’ve all seen the footage of people fighting over packs of the stuff. But why is there no toilet paper? It’s not like the US imports it all from China. No, we make our own… and we have a plenty of the stuff. It’s not like the supply chain is at risk right now. And it’s not that getting Corona virus gives people the squats either. And honestly, while I like a nice role of Charmin myself, you could use something else. A piece of napkin or tissue or even a bit of cloth. Yet we somehow get this overwhelming fear based urge to buy packs and packs of the stuff. Far beyond our needs.
Honestly, it’s not the Corona virus that’s the main problem here. According to the best information out there, there is a Corona virus (just in case anyone was wondering if I thought they made it up entire or something). And Corona virus, like the flu or other acute respiratory viruses, can be serious for certain groups of people. And people who aren’t in those groups can have it without major symptoms and pass it easily and widely to others. So deciding to be cautious is a fine and logical reaction.
No the problem is that this situation is stripping bare huge systemic problems in the US economic and political system.
I’m not afraid of catching Corona virus and I’m not afraid of passing it to an elderly person (we cancelled our planned visit to them out of caution). No, I’m afraid of:
- The lack of social safety nets so that people can’t afford to get tested or treated or even to miss work if they are sick.
- The razor thin margins in household savings, budgets (personal and corporate and government), and supply chains.
- The rampant incompetence and corruption (two of the four modern horsemen*) that mean that we’re doing all the wrong things, in the wrong ways, for the wrong reasons at every level of government to the degree that you can’t even find out what you need to go find out and there’s no test available to tell you anything anyway.
- The fact that those in charge don’t have seem to have a plan, a clue, a hope and can’t tell their asses from a hole in the ground and ‘in charge’ is broadly every agency in the nation.
- That a “post truth” world doesn’t just mean that the president lies a lot, but that everyone lies about everything all the time, to the degree that you don’t just don’t know what’s going on, you CAN’T know.
- And finally, I’m afraid that all those things are going to get real people killed unnecessarily.
* Incompetence, corruption, hypocrisy, and greed.
There’s been all this talk about Corona virus being a conspiracy. It’s not. It’s about a dozen different conspiracies, all based on a real virus. I don’t think it’s a biological weapon, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been WEAPONIZED — in different ways by different groups with different agendas. And those groups conspire to manipulate the narrative around it for their own ends. So yeah, it’s overstated and understated and politicized and used as a cover for this or that other thing.
In fact, I’m very fortunate that my job isn’t currently impacted and the household is healthy and safe. And yet, there’s this giant cloud of free-floating terror overhead. A miasma of fear that honestly takes energy to avoid catching…. almost like catching a virus. I was doing pretty good, but then my kid caught a dose, which makes it even harder to avoid myself.
So yeah, we are healthy and I’ll be working from home for a while and yet today we got infected… infected with fear. I think I’m better now. I’m glad I can talk about it here.
