WW#2: Viral Fear
I don’t get out in the world much these days, thank god. What I mean is that, while I may be outside, tooling around on my bike or walking through some beautiful cemetery looking for a nice picnic spot, I am not in the world of people and shops and grocery stores and the like. My daughter handles all that right now and I work at home. It’s as though I’ve been in a coma for over a year and I came out of it, was handed new instructions, like social distancing and mask wearing, and I’m going out for the first time.
It’s safe to say that since the pandemic started I have been into a store maybe four times. Each time was weird for me. While most people out there have been dealing with the pandemic since it started, I really haven’t. I keep up with the news, I follow the rules, they are perfectly reasonable after all, and I go about my business. The overall feeling I feel when I am out in it though is fear, mass quantities of fear.
I walk down the sidewalk and if someone is approaching, sometimes they stop dead in their tracks and get stricken with a look of total panic at my approach. I wave, adjust my mask to bring attention to it, as if to say, “Don’t be scared, I have my mask on, I will not kill twenty people today.” Then they just stand there, shaking. When this happens, I’ll stop and walk off to the side, really far and gesture for them to go ahead, as they do, they look at me with fear and a hint of anger.
This is weird to me. I remember in the movie, First Contact, a Star Trek film, they talk about visiting aliens ushering in a period of world peace when the people of Earth realize there’s something bigger out there than them. That they united, knowing they weren’t just separate countries but an entire planet of people all with a common issue. Does the pandemic prove that wrong? What would it take for the people of Earth to unite over something?
Tom Robbins once said, “Our society gives its economy priority over health, love, truth, beauty, sex and salvation, over life itself. Whatsoever is given precedence over life will take precedence over life, and will end in eliminating life. Since economics, at its most abstract level is the religion of our people, no non-economic happening, no matter how spectacular, can radically alter the souls of our people.” I think the pandemic is proving that statement to be more true than the Star Trek version of events.
So it’s weird to me that rather than any kind of coming together, the virus has only separated, engendered fear and caused people more undue and unnecessary stress. At the end of the day, much of it is personal choices made. The talk now is of this thing being over, people are getting their shots, the world will be able to connect again soon. We are all anticipating a “new normal” and it might not be a bad idea to start thinking about what we want to create, because it’s up to us.
It’s safe to say that since the pandemic started I have been into a store maybe four times. Each time was weird for me. While most people out there have been dealing with the pandemic since it started, I really haven’t. I keep up with the news, I follow the rules, they are perfectly reasonable after all, and I go about my business. The overall feeling I feel when I am out in it though is fear, mass quantities of fear.
I walk down the sidewalk and if someone is approaching, sometimes they stop dead in their tracks and get stricken with a look of total panic at my approach. I wave, adjust my mask to bring attention to it, as if to say, “Don’t be scared, I have my mask on, I will not kill twenty people today.” Then they just stand there, shaking. When this happens, I’ll stop and walk off to the side, really far and gesture for them to go ahead, as they do, they look at me with fear and a hint of anger.
This is weird to me. I remember in the movie, First Contact, a Star Trek film, they talk about visiting aliens ushering in a period of world peace when the people of Earth realize there’s something bigger out there than them. That they united, knowing they weren’t just separate countries but an entire planet of people all with a common issue. Does the pandemic prove that wrong? What would it take for the people of Earth to unite over something?
Tom Robbins once said, “Our society gives its economy priority over health, love, truth, beauty, sex and salvation, over life itself. Whatsoever is given precedence over life will take precedence over life, and will end in eliminating life. Since economics, at its most abstract level is the religion of our people, no non-economic happening, no matter how spectacular, can radically alter the souls of our people.” I think the pandemic is proving that statement to be more true than the Star Trek version of events.
So it’s weird to me that rather than any kind of coming together, the virus has only separated, engendered fear and caused people more undue and unnecessary stress. At the end of the day, much of it is personal choices made. The talk now is of this thing being over, people are getting their shots, the world will be able to connect again soon. We are all anticipating a “new normal” and it might not be a bad idea to start thinking about what we want to create, because it’s up to us.
