I remember thinking a few months ago how I could not see how things could keep going as they were. I'm not a mystic, I just spend too much time in my car alone, okay?
I have lived through the Tech Bubble and the Great Recession and was unsure as to where exactly everything had gone. With the Tech Bubble of the late 1990's, everyone, and I really mean EVERYONE, seemed to be making some sort of money off the stock market. I knew people who were working countless hours on tech startups because they hoped to make the next big thing. Well, alas, they didn't, and the market crashed leaving many in the dust. But the market was humming underneath with the mortgage debts that had been turned into bonds, which would lead to the epic collapse at the end of the first decade of the new millennia.
While myself and everyone I knew was hit by that crash, there was not this feeling of absolute stopping and reset. The momentum of the past decades was still able to go forward, all of us being enchanted and distracted (read: "Numbed") by the narcotic bliss of desire on demand with the new digital paradise. There was some poverty, but nothing like the black and white photos of bread lines in the 1930's. I never remember hearing a blues song about the hard times, only computer perfect simulacra of Music the was defined as rock, pop, hip-hop, and rap. (Classical Music was dead. Don't believe me? Okay, fine. Name me three living classical composers that are not making soundtracks for movies or video games and are played regularly by major orchestras..... See, I told you.) There was a malaise and depression among the youth due to college debt ("a life tax" as it has been called) and most were treading water. This was not a good sign as before the last two bubbles burst, money was flowing like there was no tomorrow. Everyone was talking about changing jobs for more money like they were talking about getting new shoes. This time, people were doing okay, but, outside of the financial gods, it was not that great.
So now, here we are. Unlike in The Plague, I don't see people spending lots of money as the narrator says people did. Alcohol, to be sure, is selling well. But sales of takeout from restaurants has slid down rather hard. I guess people thought that this would last three weeks and we would all be back out the doors with new money coming in. Well, I believe that people see money getting tight and are stopping the part food orders.
Every economist and financial reporter seems to be in agreement that there will be a massive recession coming up once people are allowed back to work. Including that, the medical professionals are saying the next wave will most likely hit in the winter, meaning more of the same.
We are not withstanding a storm in our home country, we are in a whole new land with a new climate.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
The Great Reset to....the Forget?
The day outside is beautiful and...the mayor of NYC has been hinting at the lockdown to remain in place for longer than May 15. It made me wonder, if we are within "The Great Reset", where is the reset point actually exist?
Humanity, if history has anything to say, is resilient. If you would have asked me, or probably anyone else for that matter, if New York and New Jersey would shut down because of a pandemic, my first words, after laughing for some time, would have been, "Well, yeah, sure,...after the military are brought in!" It seemed like an insane thought that everyone would cooperate for a long period of time. That being said, we have lived through the 9-11 attacks with amazing grace and patience. But that seemed like a personal, one time thing. Once everything calmed down and everyone was given the clearance to go outside, life, albeit gently, returned to its usual pace.
This virus, however, has shown something else. Granted, the fear of death is a somewhat universal recalibration for everyone's behavior pretty much everywhere, but there is this patience I have never seen before. Everyone is just sticking together on this one. There are no riots, no mass of people roaming the streets. We have, as a people, such together for the betterment of us all. Yes, the fact that everything got shut down helps the ever present fulfillment of desires be abated easier. Still, part of me is impressed.
But what will be the bottom line for the "reset"? Will we be a better people? Will everyone remember this or will it all fade once a cure has been found and there is no longer a worry? Humanity has a tendency to forget the past and march forward. That can't be totally dismissed as bad since that is one way progress is made. But nothing on this scale has happened in history, a global pandemic. There is no "Them" or "Us", no "There" or "Here".
The best that can happen is that there will be a majority of people who remember and stay grateful that they made it through, that they can go food shopping, go to church, go to see a band, go to the gym, get a cough and fever and not think they are going to die. It doesn't have to be this insane bliss, just a low humming of thankfulness running through each day.
But, if history says anything, we will forget like we always do, and I can't say that is a bad thing in real terms. We HAVE TO forget and move on. That is to say, we have to be in the moment as much as possible and believe the danger has passed. In Joan Didion's book, "The Year of Magical Thinking", she explores the mourning of the sudden loss of her husband. She tried to find meaning in life after the love of her life was gone. When you see her now, you can see the loss of her husband, as well as her daughter who died almost two years later, etched on her face. Even after this extreme amount of tragedy, she continues to write.
In "The Plague", the main character and (spoiler alert) narrator, Dr. Rieux, walks through the rejoicing crowd upon the opening of the gates once the plague has retreated and deaths have fallen in increasing numbers. As he himself has (more spoilers) lost his close friend to plague and his wife to an undisclosed illness far away in a sanitarium, he knows most people will forget and that life will go on for everyone. But he himself knows that the plague never really vanishes, that plagues are as common as wars and are always possible. His relief in there no longer being plague and freedom coming back are tempered. Yet, if one takes the extra step in the narrative, he continued on after life went on on and wrote down the chronicle of the events AFTER the book ends. He didn't stop living, but neither did he forget.
There are, as of this morning, more than 40,000 deaths in the US alone. There are many many people who are in mourning. To those who make it out of this invisible minefield alive, may we, at the very least, never forget to remember their sorrow.
PS: I have been noticing that this blog has been getting some traffic. Please feel free to comment, and/or pass it along. Thank you.
Humanity, if history has anything to say, is resilient. If you would have asked me, or probably anyone else for that matter, if New York and New Jersey would shut down because of a pandemic, my first words, after laughing for some time, would have been, "Well, yeah, sure,...after the military are brought in!" It seemed like an insane thought that everyone would cooperate for a long period of time. That being said, we have lived through the 9-11 attacks with amazing grace and patience. But that seemed like a personal, one time thing. Once everything calmed down and everyone was given the clearance to go outside, life, albeit gently, returned to its usual pace.
This virus, however, has shown something else. Granted, the fear of death is a somewhat universal recalibration for everyone's behavior pretty much everywhere, but there is this patience I have never seen before. Everyone is just sticking together on this one. There are no riots, no mass of people roaming the streets. We have, as a people, such together for the betterment of us all. Yes, the fact that everything got shut down helps the ever present fulfillment of desires be abated easier. Still, part of me is impressed.
But what will be the bottom line for the "reset"? Will we be a better people? Will everyone remember this or will it all fade once a cure has been found and there is no longer a worry? Humanity has a tendency to forget the past and march forward. That can't be totally dismissed as bad since that is one way progress is made. But nothing on this scale has happened in history, a global pandemic. There is no "Them" or "Us", no "There" or "Here".
The best that can happen is that there will be a majority of people who remember and stay grateful that they made it through, that they can go food shopping, go to church, go to see a band, go to the gym, get a cough and fever and not think they are going to die. It doesn't have to be this insane bliss, just a low humming of thankfulness running through each day.
But, if history says anything, we will forget like we always do, and I can't say that is a bad thing in real terms. We HAVE TO forget and move on. That is to say, we have to be in the moment as much as possible and believe the danger has passed. In Joan Didion's book, "The Year of Magical Thinking", she explores the mourning of the sudden loss of her husband. She tried to find meaning in life after the love of her life was gone. When you see her now, you can see the loss of her husband, as well as her daughter who died almost two years later, etched on her face. Even after this extreme amount of tragedy, she continues to write.
In "The Plague", the main character and (spoiler alert) narrator, Dr. Rieux, walks through the rejoicing crowd upon the opening of the gates once the plague has retreated and deaths have fallen in increasing numbers. As he himself has (more spoilers) lost his close friend to plague and his wife to an undisclosed illness far away in a sanitarium, he knows most people will forget and that life will go on for everyone. But he himself knows that the plague never really vanishes, that plagues are as common as wars and are always possible. His relief in there no longer being plague and freedom coming back are tempered. Yet, if one takes the extra step in the narrative, he continued on after life went on on and wrote down the chronicle of the events AFTER the book ends. He didn't stop living, but neither did he forget.
There are, as of this morning, more than 40,000 deaths in the US alone. There are many many people who are in mourning. To those who make it out of this invisible minefield alive, may we, at the very least, never forget to remember their sorrow.
PS: I have been noticing that this blog has been getting some traffic. Please feel free to comment, and/or pass it along. Thank you.
Friday, April 17, 2020
The Lava Lamp of Days
I just came from outside to take in the garbage can only to see a huge amount of traffic on the main road. Okay, what the hell is going on?
The death toll in the US has hit a new single day record. Due to testing and the rabid desire amongst people to go out, there is a dark possibility we will be looking back on this as a low water mark of sorts. Look, I hope not, but the NYC death toll as of this typing is just shy of 11,500 and we are far from over. There has been talk of a group of people in New Jersey organizing a protest against the shut in. Lovely. That attitude is all over Michigan right now and it seems to be right about time for things to start getting itchy in terms of emotions.
The stock market is just gushing right now and I cannot fathom it. It is no secret that the US economy is deeply based in consumption, on buying things. Some estimates say that it is around 80+%. What in the hell are people buying NOW?? Home building has slowed the most since one point in 1984. The housing market was booming again and there was a shortage of homes. This is going to get a bit bonkers when even some of the dust settles by mid-May. Credit card debt, already a bubble before this pandemic, is now being hit like they were in the crash of 2008. With unemployment so high, I cannot see this getting any better and, when the full ache of all this begins to show once the panic has slowed down, a crisis will ensue.
It kind of boils down to this: people and businesses were taking out loans based on what had been happening. That debt, insane by most rational minds, seemed fine and dandy when expecting a "same as yesterday" future. But now that people are not spending, jobs are being lost, and oil is at record lows, well, there is little coal to fuel the engines that were running at a breakneck speed. How is anyone going to get a loan when the odds of paying it back are horrible. How can a business that is carrying six times its value in debt, say a national guitar and music instrument chain, get money to refinance a business that is going to be bleeding like a firehose for the next few years? Alas, there is always money to be made and the super wealthy shall always exist endnote feel any pain. Don't believe me? Three words: The Great Gatsby.
It is cold out and I cannot figure out what season it is. We are in what, April? What does that even mean anymore? Every day seems like a blob ascending from the bottom of a lava lamp. Why the hell are so many cars on the street? Where are people going? I have no clue about this. There have been over 450 cases in my town alone as of two days ago. Okay, well, the odds have it that you will be fine. True. That being said, I went to the Post Office yesterday and the place had transformed into something between an ICU and a commercial refrigerator. There was a huge sheet of plastic between the place where the counter starts and the workers. All the workers had on gloves and masks. Most people had on masks. AND THIS IS THE POST OFFICE! THE POST OFFICE! It is impossible to overstate how insane it all looked. So, yeah, you may not get sick, but....yeah, if the POST OFFICE is looking like an outtake of the movie "12 Monkeys", you may want to have a pause before you go to the 7-11 because you are bored.
I can tell that it is going to be hard to sleep tonight. I believe that the last remnants of the old world are burning off and that the anxiety of this unknown future is going to start rising.
Whatever, I can always take a nap at some point, right?
The death toll in the US has hit a new single day record. Due to testing and the rabid desire amongst people to go out, there is a dark possibility we will be looking back on this as a low water mark of sorts. Look, I hope not, but the NYC death toll as of this typing is just shy of 11,500 and we are far from over. There has been talk of a group of people in New Jersey organizing a protest against the shut in. Lovely. That attitude is all over Michigan right now and it seems to be right about time for things to start getting itchy in terms of emotions.
The stock market is just gushing right now and I cannot fathom it. It is no secret that the US economy is deeply based in consumption, on buying things. Some estimates say that it is around 80+%. What in the hell are people buying NOW?? Home building has slowed the most since one point in 1984. The housing market was booming again and there was a shortage of homes. This is going to get a bit bonkers when even some of the dust settles by mid-May. Credit card debt, already a bubble before this pandemic, is now being hit like they were in the crash of 2008. With unemployment so high, I cannot see this getting any better and, when the full ache of all this begins to show once the panic has slowed down, a crisis will ensue.
It kind of boils down to this: people and businesses were taking out loans based on what had been happening. That debt, insane by most rational minds, seemed fine and dandy when expecting a "same as yesterday" future. But now that people are not spending, jobs are being lost, and oil is at record lows, well, there is little coal to fuel the engines that were running at a breakneck speed. How is anyone going to get a loan when the odds of paying it back are horrible. How can a business that is carrying six times its value in debt, say a national guitar and music instrument chain, get money to refinance a business that is going to be bleeding like a firehose for the next few years? Alas, there is always money to be made and the super wealthy shall always exist endnote feel any pain. Don't believe me? Three words: The Great Gatsby.
It is cold out and I cannot figure out what season it is. We are in what, April? What does that even mean anymore? Every day seems like a blob ascending from the bottom of a lava lamp. Why the hell are so many cars on the street? Where are people going? I have no clue about this. There have been over 450 cases in my town alone as of two days ago. Okay, well, the odds have it that you will be fine. True. That being said, I went to the Post Office yesterday and the place had transformed into something between an ICU and a commercial refrigerator. There was a huge sheet of plastic between the place where the counter starts and the workers. All the workers had on gloves and masks. Most people had on masks. AND THIS IS THE POST OFFICE! THE POST OFFICE! It is impossible to overstate how insane it all looked. So, yeah, you may not get sick, but....yeah, if the POST OFFICE is looking like an outtake of the movie "12 Monkeys", you may want to have a pause before you go to the 7-11 because you are bored.
I can tell that it is going to be hard to sleep tonight. I believe that the last remnants of the old world are burning off and that the anxiety of this unknown future is going to start rising.
Whatever, I can always take a nap at some point, right?
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Keep Your Eyes on the Moving Line...or Don't
They just threw out May 15 as a time when they may consider open the schools, or something like that. But we have heard that before.
They have moved the line up a week and I guess I should be grateful they are not moving it up even more. I have heard from someone in the medical field that the coronavirus seems to have two nasty strains: one that hits your lungs and make you sick and another that does that plus attacks your kidneys and liver. They have no idea why. Lovely.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that this issue going to go on for some time and it is going to get messy. There are parts of the US that are angry at being asked to not go out. I am not going to talk about personal freedom, as that gets very messy, very fast. All I shall say about this situation is this: you don't just hurt yourself, you hurt, or even kill, others who did not wish to take the risk you chose to take. The people in the places that do not wish to stay in place are placing themselves in great risk. Personally, I have had to see news footage of bodies being placed in refrigerated trucks in a city 36 miles from where I live and that sobered me up. As Camus said in "The Plague", "In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced."
The unemployment numbers are through the roof. Apparently the stock market is rising, in part, because the number of unemployed are not as high as expected. (sigh) The economy of the world is going to be a mess for some time to come. The money that is being sent out now is not going to last long and if food gets more expensive and harder to get, things will most likely get nasty like they always do in this sort of situation. While the wonderful group mentality of being there for each other while we are all in the same boat, there always comes a tipping point that is bad. May it not get there, but if it does, may it be brief and not messy.
I am unsure as to what is going to happen to small businesses. It does not look good. The bigger companies can most likely get cash at the non-existent interest rates via the Fed. But the economy is going to just scream in pain with the slightest turn of the nozzle on what normal used to be. We are all at the first moment of this radically bonkers economic world. I am not very hopeful, but maybe I am just in a bad mood because I didn't sleep as much as I wanted.
As a Musician, I have no idea when there will be any money for the working Musician. Follow my logic here: Musicians are paid via what the bar (or restaurant, but mostly bar) makes. What they make is based on attendance. Even if the bars open, people will not be flooding the spaces, not to mention there will most likely still be social distancing. Attendance will be down. So, where's the money to pay the band? Oh, wait, I understand the concept of playing for free. Okay, fine. We all just go out and play for free... AGAIN. Less places will be open so now the insane amount of cover bands that were out there will all be competing to the death for a gig. Cover bands make money, unknown original Music does not. The cover bands get the gigs. But, and hear me out on this, I believe we are burning a great deal of nostalgia as fuel right now and looking back on the past with fondness will take some time. Yes, the mega-bands like The Rolling Stones and U2 will still tour after the green light is given, and I am sure they will get the insane amount of money per ticket that they always have, even if the economy is in a Depression. But it will take some time before original Music has even the slightest chance to be at the local level. The scene was already financially dead before this, so, unless there is an amazing change of perspective in the culture, I cannot see a resurrection.
But, it is a beautiful day and I received a personal letter in the mail. The coffee, while made yesterday, is still good and strong. And I can write. So, there is some good, and with it some hope, no?
They have moved the line up a week and I guess I should be grateful they are not moving it up even more. I have heard from someone in the medical field that the coronavirus seems to have two nasty strains: one that hits your lungs and make you sick and another that does that plus attacks your kidneys and liver. They have no idea why. Lovely.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that this issue going to go on for some time and it is going to get messy. There are parts of the US that are angry at being asked to not go out. I am not going to talk about personal freedom, as that gets very messy, very fast. All I shall say about this situation is this: you don't just hurt yourself, you hurt, or even kill, others who did not wish to take the risk you chose to take. The people in the places that do not wish to stay in place are placing themselves in great risk. Personally, I have had to see news footage of bodies being placed in refrigerated trucks in a city 36 miles from where I live and that sobered me up. As Camus said in "The Plague", "In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced."
The unemployment numbers are through the roof. Apparently the stock market is rising, in part, because the number of unemployed are not as high as expected. (sigh) The economy of the world is going to be a mess for some time to come. The money that is being sent out now is not going to last long and if food gets more expensive and harder to get, things will most likely get nasty like they always do in this sort of situation. While the wonderful group mentality of being there for each other while we are all in the same boat, there always comes a tipping point that is bad. May it not get there, but if it does, may it be brief and not messy.
I am unsure as to what is going to happen to small businesses. It does not look good. The bigger companies can most likely get cash at the non-existent interest rates via the Fed. But the economy is going to just scream in pain with the slightest turn of the nozzle on what normal used to be. We are all at the first moment of this radically bonkers economic world. I am not very hopeful, but maybe I am just in a bad mood because I didn't sleep as much as I wanted.
As a Musician, I have no idea when there will be any money for the working Musician. Follow my logic here: Musicians are paid via what the bar (or restaurant, but mostly bar) makes. What they make is based on attendance. Even if the bars open, people will not be flooding the spaces, not to mention there will most likely still be social distancing. Attendance will be down. So, where's the money to pay the band? Oh, wait, I understand the concept of playing for free. Okay, fine. We all just go out and play for free... AGAIN. Less places will be open so now the insane amount of cover bands that were out there will all be competing to the death for a gig. Cover bands make money, unknown original Music does not. The cover bands get the gigs. But, and hear me out on this, I believe we are burning a great deal of nostalgia as fuel right now and looking back on the past with fondness will take some time. Yes, the mega-bands like The Rolling Stones and U2 will still tour after the green light is given, and I am sure they will get the insane amount of money per ticket that they always have, even if the economy is in a Depression. But it will take some time before original Music has even the slightest chance to be at the local level. The scene was already financially dead before this, so, unless there is an amazing change of perspective in the culture, I cannot see a resurrection.
But, it is a beautiful day and I received a personal letter in the mail. The coffee, while made yesterday, is still good and strong. And I can write. So, there is some good, and with it some hope, no?
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
What, is anything, will remain? For my fellow Musicians...
It is a new day of the same here, and the next many weeks ahead look to be the same bad photocopy replica of a lost original, just like those band flyers one used to see on telephone polls back in the day.
As of this writing, the world has passed two million reported coronavirus cases and 127,000 deaths worldwide, with the US having over 26,000 deaths. Social distancing is now being said to have to be in place for some time, months, if not well over a year. As I have said before, we are still able to remember and have feel the way it used to be. This boat has many more miles to go before the new land is arrived at...and there is little room on it for Musicians.
Last night, I was having a talk with a very talented friend of my, a songwriter and guitarist I really respect. We were talking about how all this is going to shape what we do. The conversation soon shifted into how the entire Music collective seemed to have a new paradigm of that recorded Music has no value. You just have to make merchandise and do live shows. I have always, and forever will, despise that belief. It seemed the easiest way to surrender the intrinsic value of what one created. The film industry never said that. The fine arts never said that. It was the Musicians that seemed to surrender their souls first to the new technological gods.
One belief that burned with a deep anger inside me was that, what if you had an illness that made it impossible for you to tour but you still made amazing Music? Oh, please do not get me started on the money from streaming services, as that is beyond minimal for 99% of us who do this. We all got sold out by the belief that we could all be screwed over and somehow be the better for it. While it was apparent that, just as Baroque Music gave way to the Classical Period that gave way to the Romantic era and so on, guitar based rock Music had shifted away from the popular medium and into other styles. While it hurts to have perhaps stayed too long at the party, there were other people in the room.
The religious vigor of "PLAY LIVE OR DIE!" now seems to have ended like the last day of a doomed cult. No one is playing live and there will be no real live Music in the general sense for at least a year, so where does that leave us as a Musical community in this pandemic? There are some that are trying to do solo acoustic live videos and others who are trying a multi-person live band thing. I suspect this will either bloom into new and better ideas or die a quiet death. But, if there is money to be found in it, I am certain that it will grow.
There will now be a generation of Musicians who will never know what it is like to play live, even in a backyard or basement. It was becoming scarcer and scarcer over the years, at least around here, and now the tap is turned off, the forest burned to the ground. An any Musician worth their salt will tell you that playing live, even simply at a rehearsal with others, makes a huge difference. It never really dawned on me that such experiences had a deep value until after I wrote a book about my very odd life in Music, "Not the Yearbook You Expected". My friend and I agree that all those horrible gigs actually made a difference and had a value we never thought they did now that such things cannot be done. All those thorned experiences meant something, and we were both glad we did them even though we had spent the bulk of our lives cursing at what seemed abject failure.
Something new will come from this, some new creativity, to help us survive this time without the most basic primal human interaction. There will be beauty, to be sure. But the longer this goes on, the more the muscles from that experience will atrophy and the less number of new people will experience it. But, simply from a historical point of view, this has never happened before. Painters will paint. Writers will write. But Musicians, like actors and dancers, have something that must be performed live with others.
There will be beauty, and this surreal dark time will pass, but let no one ever tell you they knew how when this is all over.
As of this writing, the world has passed two million reported coronavirus cases and 127,000 deaths worldwide, with the US having over 26,000 deaths. Social distancing is now being said to have to be in place for some time, months, if not well over a year. As I have said before, we are still able to remember and have feel the way it used to be. This boat has many more miles to go before the new land is arrived at...and there is little room on it for Musicians.
Last night, I was having a talk with a very talented friend of my, a songwriter and guitarist I really respect. We were talking about how all this is going to shape what we do. The conversation soon shifted into how the entire Music collective seemed to have a new paradigm of that recorded Music has no value. You just have to make merchandise and do live shows. I have always, and forever will, despise that belief. It seemed the easiest way to surrender the intrinsic value of what one created. The film industry never said that. The fine arts never said that. It was the Musicians that seemed to surrender their souls first to the new technological gods.
One belief that burned with a deep anger inside me was that, what if you had an illness that made it impossible for you to tour but you still made amazing Music? Oh, please do not get me started on the money from streaming services, as that is beyond minimal for 99% of us who do this. We all got sold out by the belief that we could all be screwed over and somehow be the better for it. While it was apparent that, just as Baroque Music gave way to the Classical Period that gave way to the Romantic era and so on, guitar based rock Music had shifted away from the popular medium and into other styles. While it hurts to have perhaps stayed too long at the party, there were other people in the room.
The religious vigor of "PLAY LIVE OR DIE!" now seems to have ended like the last day of a doomed cult. No one is playing live and there will be no real live Music in the general sense for at least a year, so where does that leave us as a Musical community in this pandemic? There are some that are trying to do solo acoustic live videos and others who are trying a multi-person live band thing. I suspect this will either bloom into new and better ideas or die a quiet death. But, if there is money to be found in it, I am certain that it will grow.
There will now be a generation of Musicians who will never know what it is like to play live, even in a backyard or basement. It was becoming scarcer and scarcer over the years, at least around here, and now the tap is turned off, the forest burned to the ground. An any Musician worth their salt will tell you that playing live, even simply at a rehearsal with others, makes a huge difference. It never really dawned on me that such experiences had a deep value until after I wrote a book about my very odd life in Music, "Not the Yearbook You Expected". My friend and I agree that all those horrible gigs actually made a difference and had a value we never thought they did now that such things cannot be done. All those thorned experiences meant something, and we were both glad we did them even though we had spent the bulk of our lives cursing at what seemed abject failure.
Something new will come from this, some new creativity, to help us survive this time without the most basic primal human interaction. There will be beauty, to be sure. But the longer this goes on, the more the muscles from that experience will atrophy and the less number of new people will experience it. But, simply from a historical point of view, this has never happened before. Painters will paint. Writers will write. But Musicians, like actors and dancers, have something that must be performed live with others.
There will be beauty, and this surreal dark time will pass, but let no one ever tell you they knew how when this is all over.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Easter Sunday, 2020. Let us never forget it.
Okay, so it is evening here on Easter Sunday. I have called 2% of the people I used to on Easter because.....I can do it tomorrow or the day after that or the day after that or the day after that or the day after that. This is the time of the never ending bad dream of existence, not truly living. Hey, for the record, I am super grateful that I have food for some time and money to use to get by during all this, but it is not looking that great out here.
New York's death rate keep spiking while the other numbers look better. But I am in New Jersey and we lag behind NYC. The next three weeks look to be very unpleasant. They are expecting NYC to hit high watermark and the New Jersey to follow. After that, they will... being... to... examine... what... to.... do....with...the.........not being able to leave the house. So, from my angle, there is another solid month here, in limbo's mine field.
They are calling for severe storms to be rolling though this area tomorrow evening. They are also warning of electrical outages that will take a great deal longer than usual to fix. So now there is the worry that all the food in the refrigerator will go bad. This just never stops getting more painful.
If I am able to live past all this and be within a time where hugging someone is not bi-lateral Russian roulette, I just hope I am grateful. I am not going be a moron and say, "I want to be grateful every minute of every day!!" because that is not how it works. It does not work when you are mourning the death of someone and it does not work anywhere. The best you can get is to get that one hit of deep gratitude once a day where you take one deep breath and remember that the beauty you are WITHIN is NOT A GIVEN. We get on with our lives after the deaths and the breakups and the weddings and the deep infinite everything that we experience deeper every day.
I just hope I smile more. That is the least I could do.
New York's death rate keep spiking while the other numbers look better. But I am in New Jersey and we lag behind NYC. The next three weeks look to be very unpleasant. They are expecting NYC to hit high watermark and the New Jersey to follow. After that, they will... being... to... examine... what... to.... do....with...the.........not being able to leave the house. So, from my angle, there is another solid month here, in limbo's mine field.
They are calling for severe storms to be rolling though this area tomorrow evening. They are also warning of electrical outages that will take a great deal longer than usual to fix. So now there is the worry that all the food in the refrigerator will go bad. This just never stops getting more painful.
If I am able to live past all this and be within a time where hugging someone is not bi-lateral Russian roulette, I just hope I am grateful. I am not going be a moron and say, "I want to be grateful every minute of every day!!" because that is not how it works. It does not work when you are mourning the death of someone and it does not work anywhere. The best you can get is to get that one hit of deep gratitude once a day where you take one deep breath and remember that the beauty you are WITHIN is NOT A GIVEN. We get on with our lives after the deaths and the breakups and the weddings and the deep infinite everything that we experience deeper every day.
I just hope I smile more. That is the least I could do.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Holy Saturday with Fading Echoes and Inevitable Thorns
It is Holy Saturday and things are sliding into the new order. Going out to check the mail or take out the trash is a joyful experience, BECAUSE YOU GET TO GO OUT! I will check the mail after I write this, and that will be the high point of my day.
It seems the virus has been rising in Ecuador and it has turned into a literal hell. There are bodies in the streets and the morgues are full. No one can get buried. As Dr. Rieux said in "The Plague", people will fight to the death to not have their loved ones thrown to the sea, as was the case in plagues of Greece. In Ecuador, families are putting the bodies of their dead in their cars and dressing them up as passengers just to get them out of town to bury them. Vultures swarm above to feed on the bodies left in the street. They have run out of wooden coffins and are making cardboard ones. The place smells of death and the infection is only going to get worse.
The more this spreads, the more every single problem of wealth will be shown within the starkest relief of the random equal justice of a virus. The world, so keen to have itself redefined in every way by science and capitalism over the past few hundred years, is now going to be taken to its knees over the course of the next year or two. Science cannot give the immediate cure and seemingly divine salvation that people always thought it could. People are dying from this thing for reasons no one can figure out. The economies of the world are going to have to figure out exactly what to do next as the labor force is going to be slow in coming back and bills will not be paid. There is always the possibility of hype-rinflation and all the turmoil when it comes to visit. We shall see. All we can do is wait.
The service tonight is the highest holy point in the Catholic Church calendar. It has been my favorite service to go to for many years, even though in the past several, I have not been able to go. But that is the way in this New World Disorder.
The Mass tonight, when done almost anywhere, lasts easily over an hour and a half. Most times I ahve been to the Cathedral near here, it was around two hours.The whole service is based on a huge incline of emotion, lighting, and sound. It starts off slow, in the almost dark and then, when the second part kicks in a bit later, the lights go on and the organ and choirs just go bonkers for the Gloria. It is impressive. There is also a huge solemness to the first part that focusses on death and the afterlife.
I remember years ago and being in the pew alone at the cathedral near where I went to high school. One of my former teachers, Brother Robert Ziobro, was doing one of the many readings. That threw me off guard as it was an unexpected visit from my past and it was enough to make me begin to cry. It was mostly for the people I knew that had died the previous years, not to mention a good amount of self pity thrown into the equation. But I was able to hold off until his voice threw me off balance enough to cause the damn to break.
I will watch the Service in a little bit via livestream. It will only be a shallow echo of what I remember feeling and experiencing. The death of my friend a little over a month ago seems like a bad dream that happened decades ago. I hope I get moved a bit by simply watching it. I really do.
So, being here in this quiet house and only able to leave to check the mail does not sound too bad, to only live within the echoes of being within a sacred ritual, to long for the most simple of outside human interaction. This is the other side of the progress everyone has made, the back-slap echo of all the progress that generations thought had no dark side. To be sure, myself and others have reaped the benefits. But now, were are all entwined in the inevitable sorrow.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Good Friday, 2020: At Least the Birds Sing Here...
Perhaps the hardest thing to do in these times is to try to find a memory that is even remotely the same. But then again, that may also be a blessing we have yet to comprehend.
It is the afternoon of Good Friday, and it is yet other faded copy of a day here in the New Self-Constructing World. I just watched the Church service for today online. I really believe that, if memory serves me right, I have attended Good Friday services every year for most of my life. To have to sit in the same room and watch the service going on at a Church I used to attend as a kid all the way up to month, was punishing.
Good Friday is not a high Holy Day in the Catholic Church, though it is a day of fasting and not eating meat. But one is not required to go to services. That being said, I do remember these services having a solid attendance each year. And it is not like this thing just breezes by, either. This service, with a church full of people, can easily go on for 90 minutes. (The only service longer, I believe, is the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night, as it has an expanded liturgy and much more within it. Easily two hours on that one if you get the right size crowd and choir.) But people, like myself, were drawn to it every year.
My reasons for going were always personal. I had either just lost someone close to me or things were going badly in my life with other relationships and the narrative of The Passion always hit home. And I would always go alone so I could focus on my life and what was going on. I would always cry at the service, sometimes a tear, other times more than expected. But it was a place where I could expose my soul and try to heal up a bit. It felt like leaving a funeral, but with more hope.
But this year, there was none of that. There was no reference point to be found, just the new habit of this new land where one consumes by watching their old habits appear before them on a screen. I remembered sitting in the pews at that church as a kid and thinking that the service lasted for an eternity. What got me through was the fact that on the way home every year, we would get McDonald's Filet-O-Fish on the ride home. It was amazing and a yearly ritual-event that forever
tugs at my heart strings.
The only thing that is the same as those days, or any days up till now, is the song of birds outside the window. I would hear them in Church during the services outside the stained-glass windows. I can hear them from the backyard now, when the insane wind calms down for a bit. I remembered thinking how odd it was for the birds to be singing while the reading of The Passion, a beautiful melody being heard within the most sorrowful text in the Bible. Now, without any context for this, the birds just sounded like birds.
It is slowly dawning on me that the life I have managed to figure out how to exist in as an adult is now gone, most likely never to return in its fullest form. They are now talking about school being out until Autumn and even then with major changes. No school means no contact which means the bars and restaurants will be closed for at least a month or more. Even then, I sincerely doubt that people will go in great numbers as long as the body count stays high in NYC. They just started doing mass graves there as the death toll is rising. That being said, they are saying that the number of people going to the hospital is dropping.
I cannot stress the following enough: WE ARE ALL GUESSING AT EVERYTHING DURING THIS!!!!!!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!!!! NONE! NO ONE DOES! AND DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU OTHERWISE AFTER THE FACT! E-V-E-R!
Nothing of any great change will happen until there is a vaccine and cure for this thing...and that vaccine is available and taken by everyone. What is that timeline I have heard? A year and a half at best? Two years? That is one hundred and one more weeks of this or some variation of it.
To be sure, nothing will be untouched by this. When the fear of flesh touching flesh, breath mingling with others' breath, and a cough merely means one has coughed and not a symptom of getting ill with a global pandemic, it is unlikely to be like Camus' ending to The Plague. In the book, there is a hug celebration in town when the gates are open and trains allowed to arrive again. While I am sure that there will be a huge 4th of July fireworks display this year (for the places that can afford it), everything will be at bay, ill at ease with the wondering when the cure will be found, if it will come back, etc. There is talk of possible food shortages and a great economic depression on a global scale that will arrive when this first wave of the pandemic is perceived as over.
And, it is not as though we will be released into a world who is a stranger to what we have been through, waves of humanity not effected by the virus boosting us up with their untouched souls reminding us of where we once were and long to be. No, for we as a globe are all in this together at one time. There will only be people that had it or did not, a unifying binary function amongst all who survive.
That is to say, it took a virus to somehow unite a planet.
It is the afternoon of Good Friday, and it is yet other faded copy of a day here in the New Self-Constructing World. I just watched the Church service for today online. I really believe that, if memory serves me right, I have attended Good Friday services every year for most of my life. To have to sit in the same room and watch the service going on at a Church I used to attend as a kid all the way up to month, was punishing.
Good Friday is not a high Holy Day in the Catholic Church, though it is a day of fasting and not eating meat. But one is not required to go to services. That being said, I do remember these services having a solid attendance each year. And it is not like this thing just breezes by, either. This service, with a church full of people, can easily go on for 90 minutes. (The only service longer, I believe, is the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday night, as it has an expanded liturgy and much more within it. Easily two hours on that one if you get the right size crowd and choir.) But people, like myself, were drawn to it every year.
My reasons for going were always personal. I had either just lost someone close to me or things were going badly in my life with other relationships and the narrative of The Passion always hit home. And I would always go alone so I could focus on my life and what was going on. I would always cry at the service, sometimes a tear, other times more than expected. But it was a place where I could expose my soul and try to heal up a bit. It felt like leaving a funeral, but with more hope.
But this year, there was none of that. There was no reference point to be found, just the new habit of this new land where one consumes by watching their old habits appear before them on a screen. I remembered sitting in the pews at that church as a kid and thinking that the service lasted for an eternity. What got me through was the fact that on the way home every year, we would get McDonald's Filet-O-Fish on the ride home. It was amazing and a yearly ritual-event that forever
tugs at my heart strings.
The only thing that is the same as those days, or any days up till now, is the song of birds outside the window. I would hear them in Church during the services outside the stained-glass windows. I can hear them from the backyard now, when the insane wind calms down for a bit. I remembered thinking how odd it was for the birds to be singing while the reading of The Passion, a beautiful melody being heard within the most sorrowful text in the Bible. Now, without any context for this, the birds just sounded like birds.
It is slowly dawning on me that the life I have managed to figure out how to exist in as an adult is now gone, most likely never to return in its fullest form. They are now talking about school being out until Autumn and even then with major changes. No school means no contact which means the bars and restaurants will be closed for at least a month or more. Even then, I sincerely doubt that people will go in great numbers as long as the body count stays high in NYC. They just started doing mass graves there as the death toll is rising. That being said, they are saying that the number of people going to the hospital is dropping.
I cannot stress the following enough: WE ARE ALL GUESSING AT EVERYTHING DURING THIS!!!!!!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT!!!! NONE! NO ONE DOES! AND DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU OTHERWISE AFTER THE FACT! E-V-E-R!
Nothing of any great change will happen until there is a vaccine and cure for this thing...and that vaccine is available and taken by everyone. What is that timeline I have heard? A year and a half at best? Two years? That is one hundred and one more weeks of this or some variation of it.
To be sure, nothing will be untouched by this. When the fear of flesh touching flesh, breath mingling with others' breath, and a cough merely means one has coughed and not a symptom of getting ill with a global pandemic, it is unlikely to be like Camus' ending to The Plague. In the book, there is a hug celebration in town when the gates are open and trains allowed to arrive again. While I am sure that there will be a huge 4th of July fireworks display this year (for the places that can afford it), everything will be at bay, ill at ease with the wondering when the cure will be found, if it will come back, etc. There is talk of possible food shortages and a great economic depression on a global scale that will arrive when this first wave of the pandemic is perceived as over.
And, it is not as though we will be released into a world who is a stranger to what we have been through, waves of humanity not effected by the virus boosting us up with their untouched souls reminding us of where we once were and long to be. No, for we as a globe are all in this together at one time. There will only be people that had it or did not, a unifying binary function amongst all who survive.
That is to say, it took a virus to somehow unite a planet.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
No Longer Innocent When You Dream....
I am about to go to sleep, and now, it turns out, not even that is a safe place from the virus.
Allow me to explain.
Personally, over the past few weeks, I have been having intense dreams. No, not about some barren wasteland where people stay alive by eating straw brooms until they are forced to eat the flesh of people in group improv groups (stay safe, my brethren). No, it turns out that there are reports of many people having strange dreams these days. Awesome. Just.....awesome.
Look, I have no idea what the hell is going on, but when your dreams begin to get to lucid that you feel you are having to deal with two separate sets of reality every day, things get messy. I will go to sleep after I type this and publish it, but, like what the hell? Can I at least have my sleep??
Eggs are going up in price, up by about 70% in some places, 200+% in others. To have the god of irony kick sand in your face, the price of gasoline is, according to someone who got it today, $1.95 for regular. Allow me to say why this news is stranger than if someone told me that all of the Backstreet Boys were pregnant. Here in New Jersey, I cannot remember when I saw gas that low. If I were to take away the insane added gasoline tax we got screwed with in the past years, that would make it about $1.70. That is crazy. With inflation, the same gallon of gas in New Jersey when Nirvana hit with their album "Nevermind" was more. And, as you have guessed, I cannot go out and enjoy this low price of gas because we cannot drive anywhere.
The virus took a new high death toll in NYC and New Jersey today. And, as I predicted, it is spreading south and west from here, with more and more deaths happening in places that were late in the game. Chicago is getting cut hard, as is Detroit.
Oh, yeah, one last thing before I surrender to the now unsafe dream world: New Jersey got told that this "Stay in Place" order was going to be around for another four weeks....(wait for it)...at least.
I guess we are no longer innocent when we dream...
Allow me to explain.
Personally, over the past few weeks, I have been having intense dreams. No, not about some barren wasteland where people stay alive by eating straw brooms until they are forced to eat the flesh of people in group improv groups (stay safe, my brethren). No, it turns out that there are reports of many people having strange dreams these days. Awesome. Just.....awesome.
Look, I have no idea what the hell is going on, but when your dreams begin to get to lucid that you feel you are having to deal with two separate sets of reality every day, things get messy. I will go to sleep after I type this and publish it, but, like what the hell? Can I at least have my sleep??
Eggs are going up in price, up by about 70% in some places, 200+% in others. To have the god of irony kick sand in your face, the price of gasoline is, according to someone who got it today, $1.95 for regular. Allow me to say why this news is stranger than if someone told me that all of the Backstreet Boys were pregnant. Here in New Jersey, I cannot remember when I saw gas that low. If I were to take away the insane added gasoline tax we got screwed with in the past years, that would make it about $1.70. That is crazy. With inflation, the same gallon of gas in New Jersey when Nirvana hit with their album "Nevermind" was more. And, as you have guessed, I cannot go out and enjoy this low price of gas because we cannot drive anywhere.
The virus took a new high death toll in NYC and New Jersey today. And, as I predicted, it is spreading south and west from here, with more and more deaths happening in places that were late in the game. Chicago is getting cut hard, as is Detroit.
Oh, yeah, one last thing before I surrender to the now unsafe dream world: New Jersey got told that this "Stay in Place" order was going to be around for another four weeks....(wait for it)...at least.
I guess we are no longer innocent when we dream...
Monday, April 6, 2020
Moving Further Offshore, While Going Nowhere
I went for a walk yesterday, Sunday. It was my first walk of any real length in over two weeks.
There was nothing terribly surreal about the walk. Perhaps the amazingly beautiful Spring day clashed a bit harsh with the pandemic anywhere/everywhere. The streets were somewhat less emptier than usual and we tried to keep a safe distance from anyone else. That being said: if someone is on the sidewalk and you are on the street..and the street is empty...how about you move the hell over a few feet in the street!!!!!!!!!! This is an empty suburban street on a Sunday afternoon during a pandemic, NOT the 405 in LA at 5 pm!
What struck me was the fact that nature was just blooming. A cherry blossom tree was vibrant with white blooms. We all know that nature just keeps going regardless of what happens to us, but the interior dread bowed humbly before the Spring beauty around me. Nature and physics thankfully keep going keep going, regardless of desire.
It seems that today there has been a throw down of sorts with the virus. We have been told that the next two weeks are going to be hell here in New Jersey and to brace ourselves. That being said, I just got word that a friend's brother is in ICU with renal and liver failure, with a 50/50 shot at making it out. He is somewhere around my own age. I think that is what is going to happen as the weeks progress, more and more people are going to get it and that, obviously, will bring it all the more home to people. Let me explain a bit more.
This whole thing is making everyone with a brain, fear for their life. That's why you stay inside. That's why the strip club is closed. That's why there is no sporting events. The presence of illness and mortality are known, but they are not being fully embraced. And I am not saying they should as that can lead to a serious depression and only used when needed. Being near NYC, we feel the tremors a bit harder than, say, the middle of the nation where this thing has barely gotten, relative to the East Coast. All I can say is this: it is impossible to get any local supermarket or delivery system to bring you groceries for the next week. Zero. All spaces filled. If there is a pulse for what the pandemic is doing to the fears of those here, perhaps that is a decent indication.
There was also news that NYC has decided to have its crematoriums going 24/7 to deal with the dead. This threw me a bit as, in The Plague, that was the last effort they could do when there was no space. Also like in the novel, funeral services have been warped into a closed coffin, with few people there. One main difference between the book and now is that, well, the services are streamed for others to see.
Unlike in the book, Church services have been suspended for EVERYONE. The rules set down by man as seemingly unbreakable in terms of what is allowed have broken down. I guess everyone is going to have to come to terms with the theological concept that God is infinite and the rules are not made of concrete, but water.
I am going to go out for a walk later around sunset. It should be nice as the weather is stunningly perfect. I am sure it will be beautiful as I see it from this more distanced place from the shores of our old life.
There was nothing terribly surreal about the walk. Perhaps the amazingly beautiful Spring day clashed a bit harsh with the pandemic anywhere/everywhere. The streets were somewhat less emptier than usual and we tried to keep a safe distance from anyone else. That being said: if someone is on the sidewalk and you are on the street..and the street is empty...how about you move the hell over a few feet in the street!!!!!!!!!! This is an empty suburban street on a Sunday afternoon during a pandemic, NOT the 405 in LA at 5 pm!
What struck me was the fact that nature was just blooming. A cherry blossom tree was vibrant with white blooms. We all know that nature just keeps going regardless of what happens to us, but the interior dread bowed humbly before the Spring beauty around me. Nature and physics thankfully keep going keep going, regardless of desire.
It seems that today there has been a throw down of sorts with the virus. We have been told that the next two weeks are going to be hell here in New Jersey and to brace ourselves. That being said, I just got word that a friend's brother is in ICU with renal and liver failure, with a 50/50 shot at making it out. He is somewhere around my own age. I think that is what is going to happen as the weeks progress, more and more people are going to get it and that, obviously, will bring it all the more home to people. Let me explain a bit more.
This whole thing is making everyone with a brain, fear for their life. That's why you stay inside. That's why the strip club is closed. That's why there is no sporting events. The presence of illness and mortality are known, but they are not being fully embraced. And I am not saying they should as that can lead to a serious depression and only used when needed. Being near NYC, we feel the tremors a bit harder than, say, the middle of the nation where this thing has barely gotten, relative to the East Coast. All I can say is this: it is impossible to get any local supermarket or delivery system to bring you groceries for the next week. Zero. All spaces filled. If there is a pulse for what the pandemic is doing to the fears of those here, perhaps that is a decent indication.
There was also news that NYC has decided to have its crematoriums going 24/7 to deal with the dead. This threw me a bit as, in The Plague, that was the last effort they could do when there was no space. Also like in the novel, funeral services have been warped into a closed coffin, with few people there. One main difference between the book and now is that, well, the services are streamed for others to see.
Unlike in the book, Church services have been suspended for EVERYONE. The rules set down by man as seemingly unbreakable in terms of what is allowed have broken down. I guess everyone is going to have to come to terms with the theological concept that God is infinite and the rules are not made of concrete, but water.
I am going to go out for a walk later around sunset. It should be nice as the weather is stunningly perfect. I am sure it will be beautiful as I see it from this more distanced place from the shores of our old life.
The Lottery, The Roulette Wheel, and the Dawn
I haven't posted in many days ...for a reason. I was under quarantine for the Corona virus. Someone I was with had it (we were both laughing and happy and in great spirits), and then he came down with it. He told me and I was not allowed to leave my property for two weeks. Period.
To cut to the chase, he and I are both alive, and, although he went through hell, I remained unscathed. Just think about that for a moment....
I am so very grateful that my wonderful friend did not die from the Coronavirus. VERY VERY UPON BENDED KNEE WITH HEAD BOWED TOWARDS THE HEAVENS SO VER VERY GRATEFUL!!! He is, as I type this, a healthy middle aged man with no pre-existing health issues. That being said, he went through hell and did NOT go to the hospital.
When I started writing this blog, this whole thing was what most people think: a theoretical space where they can never be touched. Fair enough, and why should one feel otherwise? The math states that most people WILL BE fine and that, after this, life will go on. I was part of that circle,.... until that phone call.
When someone you were with in a closed space says, "Hey, I just got the test back and...I am positive for the virus."...the world slows down and you have to literally catch up to the reality you have been given. What I mean is that, our present is very much hooked onto the future, all our future plans and hopes and dreams and ways to make our regrets smaller. But when you get the news....
Look, I have to say as someone who had a cancer scare years ago due to a bad x-ray, I believe I have some idea of tasting the burnt copper flakes of mortality upon their tongue, if even so slight. I say this to place my situation in a place perhaps slightly inside both camps: Those of the Never Facing Their End and Those Who Stare at it Every Single Second. Many friends younger than I have died for absolutely no logical reason. And, just four weeks ago, a beloved friend of mine died after a brief stay in hospice. The concept of the end of my corporeal self is nothing new to me, let's put it that way.
In the book "The Plague", the not-so-vaguely disguised parallel to Camus is named "Jean Tarrou". When he describes himself, as well as his own mother, in the last parts of the novel, it is Camus: he is intelligent, got along well with the ladies, was smart enough to get by with people with whom he associated, had a certain deep love and compassion for his mother, and believed in a pragmatic ideal of humanity. Tarrou's monologue before a swim with Dr. Rieux that night, shows that he, Tarrou, believes that he was always with the plague in his own way. With this belief, as with Camus, he despises the death penalty. His only redemption, without the belief in any God, is to help humanity and act with compassion. To be more precise to the novel, he desires to be a saint while being an atheist. This falls exactly within the paradigm of life being absurd as Camus' main reason of existence.
For two weeks, I sat here and wondered if I was infected, if I was to be given the death penalty for no reason. While this may seem preposterous, I would ask that you keep in mind the never ending stream of news articles that machine gun our retinas these weeks about how the most healthy and youthful have died when they should not have, given the unpredictability of this new virus. My general heath status places me within those that should live, even if it is after a hellish time and with lung problems afterwards. But, with all that being said, my death was not beyond the margins of distinct possibility.
On my perception of all this, all I have say is that it felt insane and absurd that A) via doing no risky and governmentally restricts action and B) doing nothing extraordinary, I got placed in the lottery for the virus. While that is bad enough, one has to live with the fact that, if one is picked from the lottery, there is a roulette wheel awaiting them, as one could go from not having a single symptom and have themselves, as you have read by now, die, painfully and alone.
While it is true that playing with the odds gives one the possibility of salvation, know that it can also lead to a deep anxiety and a (Breaking Bad character) Mike Ehrmantraut level of emotional decision and closure, without the lengthy story arc. Your life, and everything you've done, may or may not be over, simply by existing a simple life.
This virus seems to cut against the shameful pseudo-morality of the AIDS epidemic, the last real plague to hit these shores. One can just be at the post office or at the grocery store and, without warning, be given this slot machine death sentence. It is, perhaps, liberating, that morality cannot touch the flow of this virus. Anyone and everyone is up for grabs.
For a few days, I stayed locked down in my belief that I would be done with and I did what I could to prepare for those who would have to clean up my physical history after I was gone. But the voice, the one that only visits after one attends a funeral, stepped up and screamed if I was okay with everything if I should go. I am not unused to that lyric and melody from the grim reaper, as I have heard it many a time from many different situations. Once the fear of the possible ran out of breath, the silence gavee me enough time to say, in a still but confident voice, "Yeah. Okay. Fine. Type the end of the narrative as you wish. For the moment, I am still here and not giving up a breath." And then I did the dishes.
There is something of a famous saying that goes like, "When one is told they will be executed in the morning, one has a very busy night ahead." I see that as being very true. But, what if one is told that tomorrow they MAY die, without giving a time of their release from prison? Well, that is far more difficult in many ways.
Every cough, every headache, every chill, leaves one thinking the end is ready to consume them. There is not even some telltale mark on the skin to give affirmation. It is always two things: waiting and guessing. It has been said that animals do not fear death, only suffering. It is man whose self-reflexive consciousness fears the inevitable end to all things that exist.
I will say one thing, however. The light coming in from the dawn the first morning was rather beautiful
To cut to the chase, he and I are both alive, and, although he went through hell, I remained unscathed. Just think about that for a moment....
I am so very grateful that my wonderful friend did not die from the Coronavirus. VERY VERY UPON BENDED KNEE WITH HEAD BOWED TOWARDS THE HEAVENS SO VER VERY GRATEFUL!!! He is, as I type this, a healthy middle aged man with no pre-existing health issues. That being said, he went through hell and did NOT go to the hospital.
When I started writing this blog, this whole thing was what most people think: a theoretical space where they can never be touched. Fair enough, and why should one feel otherwise? The math states that most people WILL BE fine and that, after this, life will go on. I was part of that circle,.... until that phone call.
When someone you were with in a closed space says, "Hey, I just got the test back and...I am positive for the virus."...the world slows down and you have to literally catch up to the reality you have been given. What I mean is that, our present is very much hooked onto the future, all our future plans and hopes and dreams and ways to make our regrets smaller. But when you get the news....
Look, I have to say as someone who had a cancer scare years ago due to a bad x-ray, I believe I have some idea of tasting the burnt copper flakes of mortality upon their tongue, if even so slight. I say this to place my situation in a place perhaps slightly inside both camps: Those of the Never Facing Their End and Those Who Stare at it Every Single Second. Many friends younger than I have died for absolutely no logical reason. And, just four weeks ago, a beloved friend of mine died after a brief stay in hospice. The concept of the end of my corporeal self is nothing new to me, let's put it that way.
In the book "The Plague", the not-so-vaguely disguised parallel to Camus is named "Jean Tarrou". When he describes himself, as well as his own mother, in the last parts of the novel, it is Camus: he is intelligent, got along well with the ladies, was smart enough to get by with people with whom he associated, had a certain deep love and compassion for his mother, and believed in a pragmatic ideal of humanity. Tarrou's monologue before a swim with Dr. Rieux that night, shows that he, Tarrou, believes that he was always with the plague in his own way. With this belief, as with Camus, he despises the death penalty. His only redemption, without the belief in any God, is to help humanity and act with compassion. To be more precise to the novel, he desires to be a saint while being an atheist. This falls exactly within the paradigm of life being absurd as Camus' main reason of existence.
For two weeks, I sat here and wondered if I was infected, if I was to be given the death penalty for no reason. While this may seem preposterous, I would ask that you keep in mind the never ending stream of news articles that machine gun our retinas these weeks about how the most healthy and youthful have died when they should not have, given the unpredictability of this new virus. My general heath status places me within those that should live, even if it is after a hellish time and with lung problems afterwards. But, with all that being said, my death was not beyond the margins of distinct possibility.
On my perception of all this, all I have say is that it felt insane and absurd that A) via doing no risky and governmentally restricts action and B) doing nothing extraordinary, I got placed in the lottery for the virus. While that is bad enough, one has to live with the fact that, if one is picked from the lottery, there is a roulette wheel awaiting them, as one could go from not having a single symptom and have themselves, as you have read by now, die, painfully and alone.
While it is true that playing with the odds gives one the possibility of salvation, know that it can also lead to a deep anxiety and a (Breaking Bad character) Mike Ehrmantraut level of emotional decision and closure, without the lengthy story arc. Your life, and everything you've done, may or may not be over, simply by existing a simple life.
This virus seems to cut against the shameful pseudo-morality of the AIDS epidemic, the last real plague to hit these shores. One can just be at the post office or at the grocery store and, without warning, be given this slot machine death sentence. It is, perhaps, liberating, that morality cannot touch the flow of this virus. Anyone and everyone is up for grabs.
For a few days, I stayed locked down in my belief that I would be done with and I did what I could to prepare for those who would have to clean up my physical history after I was gone. But the voice, the one that only visits after one attends a funeral, stepped up and screamed if I was okay with everything if I should go. I am not unused to that lyric and melody from the grim reaper, as I have heard it many a time from many different situations. Once the fear of the possible ran out of breath, the silence gavee me enough time to say, in a still but confident voice, "Yeah. Okay. Fine. Type the end of the narrative as you wish. For the moment, I am still here and not giving up a breath." And then I did the dishes.
There is something of a famous saying that goes like, "When one is told they will be executed in the morning, one has a very busy night ahead." I see that as being very true. But, what if one is told that tomorrow they MAY die, without giving a time of their release from prison? Well, that is far more difficult in many ways.
Every cough, every headache, every chill, leaves one thinking the end is ready to consume them. There is not even some telltale mark on the skin to give affirmation. It is always two things: waiting and guessing. It has been said that animals do not fear death, only suffering. It is man whose self-reflexive consciousness fears the inevitable end to all things that exist.
I will say one thing, however. The light coming in from the dawn the first morning was rather beautiful
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)