Sorry for the long time since writing, but it is hard to write in a secluded hotel room when the people on the beach are dancing to the tsunami warning.
Thanksgiving was surreal in its lack of precedent and insular nature. To make matters more fun, the supermarket ran out of turkey, so we had chicken instead. A Zoom meeting allowed the seeing of some beloved relatives. But it was insular and rather crushing.
While I chose to stay inside during the holidays, millions did not and we are getting ready to have a massive wave of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths happen. This is going to be made much worse by the fact that Christmas and New Years will cause more people to gather and get infected. The general consensus is that, by mid January, there will be an astounding amount of people in hospitals. Right now, the staff is burnt out from the past eight months and are going to have to deal with something beyond historical reference. This will be soul crushing.
But people are still not wearing masks, not distancing. I was raking leaves outside without a mask because, well, I was alone, outside, and the streets were quiet. I look up, and a jogger comes three feet from be, breathing heavy and without a mask. I just froze in place. The guy was breathing right at my face! Did I mention there was no traffic and he could have avoided me by at least thirty feet without any effort? With my luck, THIS will be the way I get the virus.
Basically, what is happening is that the states will not shut down again because they need the money in taxes from the businesses. The federal government is giving no support, so things are bad. The Supreme Court just upheld the right for places of worship to stay open. Restaurants are open with limited capacity. It is all about money. Period. End of argument.
It does not take a genius to understand that gyms, places of worship, and restaurants are the places that give the highest transmission rates. An enclosed area, with and without masks. There you go. People want their old life back, even while their house is burning around them.
In this part of the country, it will take another flood of hospitalizations to overwhelm the staff to have another lockdown. I believe that will happen and the timing will be horrible. The wave will most likely crash when the senate race in decided in Georgia and the new president will be sworn in. There are still people who believe that the election was a fraud and that the president will somehow be able to turn it around and stay in power. Yes, we are all watching a coup being attempted while we have well over two thousand people die each day from the virus. You just go numb. Trust me.
This stunning death race is a reflection of who we are as a country. The actions people have chosen and not chosen to do is who we are. It is understandable that restaurants and businesses are screaming because of the loss of business and bankruptcy. My own income was cut in half, and it was already anemic before the pandemic. So, I truly understand and empathize. And my life will not be going back to normal any time soon after this breaks. There is a very good chance that I will have to do a severe career change within the next two years or sooner and spending the majority of my life at my craft. While I know I am not the only one to whom this is happening, it is unbearably painful.
We have become a consumer nation and that is how we define ourselves. If we cannot consume, we do not feel alive. With the advent of the digital age and all of the blessings it has brought, we are amusing ourselves to death. And desire feeds desire, so we always want more, no matter what happens to others. This is by no means the totality of the nation, but it seems to be a growing part, perhaps the majority. The past administration and it lack of action to save literally hundreds of thousands of lives is the most stark representation of that attitude.
Everyone is out on the beach playing and they are using the warning sound of the of the tsunami emergency to dance to.
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