The Numbers Keep Changing: The Poisons are Blooming

 We are now in a new year, and all the poisons are blooming.

I have not posted in some time for many reasons, one of them being the state of lethargy that consumed my during the holiday season. They days passed like all others have for the past ten months: inside and insular in every way. While the online video chats with people I miss were lovely, it was not the same.  There is a distance that is growing between everyone.

To make matters even worse, though by no means unexpected, a new and more virulent mutation of the virus has been found and is spreading. The first spotting was in London and very soon after was found in the US, more specifically in New York and other places. So, as this state borders NYC, the strain is most likely here. The numbers for the virus in this town are no longer being given, but there are people posting it online. There were 89 cases in this town yesterday. This means that things are ramping up and the wave is beginning to gain strength, but nowhere near here. But there is another thing to be spoken about. 

In past posts, I spoke about the underlying hum of a civil war coming. Well, it has arrived. On Wednesday, armed groups broke into the government buildings in Washington DC. It was surreal to watch this happen in real time while sitting on the couch. It was too much to process. As of this writing, five people have died, one a police officer who was beaten with a fire extinguisher. Without going into details that you can find everywhere else, there is more violence planned for the week of the inauguration, which is a week from now. Honestly, I was expecting more damage simply because it has been building for the past five years (actually more than that) and there were signs in the weeks before that were literally out in the open. 

In general, it seems that people are just overwhelmed by all that is going on. Let's not forget that there is a deep economic crisis going on now that is being hidden by the pandemic and now the political upheaval. We were broken before this week and now we are just numbly riding this wave. people are not wearing masks or not wearing them properly. Restaurants and gyms are still open. The vaccine is not getting administered in nearly the amount hoped for and the political unrest yet to come is going to make this even harder. 

So, it seems that we are headed into a full bloom of all the poisons out there. It is going to be a very dark winter. We did not take the virus nor the political unrest seriously when it could have been calmed before the deepest damage could be done. There is no way around it now, physics being what it is. The wave is coming and we cannot stop it.

Personally, I am just weary and numb. My life as I used to know it is gone. Even when this is over, it will be a long road out. I have no hope of a life better than it was before. At best, it will be a painful reunion with an open world of possibility. Before this multiple plague state, I was hoping for a new start in many ways. My life, while not perfect, was going in the right direction after making decisions for change. But that change was based on the income I had and the ability to be with other people. As it stands now, getting the vaccine and waiting enough time for it to take effect properly will happen in the Summer...hopefully. 

Whether or not we will admit it, there has been a fire raging since last March. As the free will of the people has chosen to ignore its ferocity, the roof is coming down and the gas lines are about to ignite. This fire, like all fires, destroys all that it can ignite and leaves behind either what it cannot reach or what cannot be taken down. What will stand in the end is what cannot be broken and all shall have to be rebuilt. 

And we must not forget what Dr. Rieux said at the end of "The Plague": 

And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen- chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.

I was hoping to place that quote at the end of this blog, but it seems that is not the case. We are living through both meanings of the text: an actual pandemic that is killing thousands each day and political upheaval that seems to be revolting for fascism. 

While I do not think that Camus ever could have imagined both being present at the same time, I am sure he would not have been surprised.

Christmas in Time of Pandemic: A Mirco-Diary

 We Christmas Eve not going anywhere, while I prayed the packages I sent priority mail six days prior would arrive for Christmas.  We awoke and saw nobody except each other. I went out and drove around for two hours, dropping off homemade baked goods to friends...without going near them. I called some people out of state and was told that my gifts did not arrive, as the postal system, now broken to pieces via the present administration, has almost collapsed. I came home and saw some beloved relatives via the internet for about an hour. 

It was a holiday without the presence of human touch and closeness. It sucked. It was soul crushing. But it just seemed like another day in the now endless chain of days without human contact. As I drove around, i saw houses with many many cars parked out front. This meant people were gathering. This meant the virus would most likely spread and cause the prediction of the next six to eight weeks being a hell of misery and death would most likely come to pass...and we have not even gotten to the New Year's Eve gatherings.

Our wait for an exit from this hell is arriving, as vaccines are already being given in this state. But not for those who are healthy. Those who need it the most get it first, and for that I am grateful. I am guessing I will be given the vaccine sometime in late Spring or early Summer. Until then, it is all a repeat of the same day with some variation.

A beloved friend texted me and said we had to go to lunch while he is off work for an extended break. While my soul is screaming to see a truly beloved friend, I just cannot go into a restaurant. Not now. Not when the end is so close. 

I am truly numb from the sacrifice and isolation of the past ten months, but, since the narrative end is in sight, I'll take the punches for the extended chapters I hope to be able to write.

The Daily Numbers... While Waiting for Salvation.

 They are posting the daily number of deaths from the virus while we are waiting for the vaccine to be delivered to the masses. It is a mixed message at best.

I realize that it is surprising that I did not post on the day the first vaccine was released, but it is not that simple. Yes, there is officially a light at the end of the tunnel via two vaccines being delivered to people as I type this. But, these doses are being given to front line people: doctors, nurses, police, etc., as well as those in group homes and the elderly. This makes sense. These people are needed to keep things going and are at the highest risk of death. I have no problem with this part of the present situation.

However, there is a dark edge to the vaccine. It is, in the end, a product, a piece of something that is manufactured and can be bought...for the right price. The political leaders, many of whom were fiercely against the reality of the virus being real,  are the first in line for the shot. No, my friends, they are not so dedicated to their beliefs against the reality of this plague that they would turn down the vaccine against it. This is the very definition of cowardice at the ultimate level. And, it's on tape.

Also, it is no shock that the hyper-wealthy are getting the vaccine because, well, they can pay whatever it takes to get it. There is no equality in such a situation. They will get the vaccine and they will live fine and dandy. The rest of us, however, are getting ready for another six to eight weeks of hell.

The present number of deaths is 318,782 (1,114 deaths today), and that is going to just keep getting higher in the two months ahead because, well, people still choose to gather for the holidays even though the medical community is screaming that people just stay home. But, in this land of personal freedom over a cause for the greater good of all, we will easily hit four hundred thousand deaths before the end of February, and over half a million by the time the theoretical flag of a possible victory in the upcoming Summer/early Autumn.  Over half a million people dead that should never have had to die. I cannot even begin to imagine the amount of joy that would be needed to rise over that literal mountain of dead bodies.

And, yes, there IS a different feeling these days. There is finally a narrative thread that will lead to some ending. This vaccine is the hero to save humanity. This vaccine will set things back to a place where the light of a former normal may begin to arise. We all now know an ending shall arrive. But there is still pain, a great deal of pain that is going to keep coming and not stop when we can all go out to eat again. Personally, my life has been shattered and I cannot imagine what I will have to do to have a new career. Life for those in the lower rungs of the entertainment industry and independent contractors has been a bloodbath. there will be no immediate switch back on to resume where we left off. We will be having to start over within a new landscape that is utterly unknown. 

The hope is now in place that we shall be free of this plague. But, unlike in Camus' book, it will not be as when the town erupted into the mass of joy with the gates reopen and the trains coming back into town. While it may be possible that the virus will simply leave as the bubonic plague did, I do not believe that a virus that is basically a flu shall behave as such. We have been placed in a long game, as this flu will most likely be around for the rest of our collective life. 

This hope, while real, is temporary and fragile because we all know we will have to deal with its shadow past and lingering presence long after we are able to gather together again in public and private.

The Beaches are Full for the Tsunami

 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.

You Can't Stop Physics...as expected.

 The pandemic is now raging and has begun a massive crescendo into thousands of people both contracting and dying ....as was expected, but didn't have to happen.

There are now 251,445 deaths from the virus and a total of 11,620,037 cases. 1,500 people are dying each day and 160,000 new infections daily, with both the number of both expected to rise with what is being called a very dark time ahead. There is no doubt that we will hit 300,000 total deaths within, if not before, only thirty days from now. I have little doubt that, by the time this all quiets down to where a small amount of a normal life returns, we will hit over half a million deaths. But,....why?

The president was voted out of office with the news happening about two weeks ago. There was literally about 72 hours of quiet before the dam began to swell and finally break with a flood of push-back from the present administration to show that the election was somehow not legal and that the president should remain in office. This is literally half, if not more, of what the news is broadcasting. I will not bother to waste time describing what is going on. The history books will have more to say about it and in greater detail.

Another fraction of the news is about how the present administration, as well as all people within the party, are denying the incoming administration the ability to start setting up for a smooth transition. While no one ever really cared about this before in any real way, this delay (which has never happened before), will have a major impact on helping with the virus after the new president is sworn in. All information and funds are being withheld from the incoming administration so, if this continues, there will be a lag time before things can change in terms of financial aid to the people, a nationwide mask mandate, and the distribution of the vaccines that are being run through their final stages of testing. Each day, each week that this hand-off of power is delayed means thousands of more people getting sick and dying.

I need to also state that food banks are now running dry. There are lines to get to them that are the same as the shots of food lines in the 1930's Depression Era, with the 21st century change of the line being in cars. The economy is in crisis and this dam is breaking but there is little focus on it. There is no way that there will not be a harsh day of reckoning for the stock market which has raged forward to near record highs. It has gone up for no real reason and will fall at some point. It is basic economic cycles, like karma.

We could have changed this mass death count, but we, as a country did not. Let there be no mistake, it was a choice and we chose wrong. The leadership has lacked a central point that would lead by example and do what is best for the nation. This is the dark side of absolute personal freedom without the any caring for the common good. Science, that presence truly starting with Galileo Galilei to take hold, is now being doubted as a reality by a large amount of the populous. How odd that now, within the digital age, we are growing in a belief system from the Dark Ages. However, this mutation in cumulative thought, is only partially driven by religious thought. It is the sin of Pride that is taking this into a new spiritual thought. 

Also, let me say here that there is a low hum of a civil war rumbling ever so quietly within all this. The believers of the present president have a fanatical belief that has been called by many as a cult. He is their leader and will follow him at all costs. With him, and everyone involved, priming the pump with every word and action trying to make the election seem unfair, all the believers with fanatical zeal, it seems that there is no choice that some explosion will happen. It is possible that he could bribe and negotiate to have the electoral college to go against the popular vote. This would cause a wave of rightful protest and empower his followers. If all goes as the law states, he will be gone but both having destroyed as much as he could on the way out and never admitting he lost, enraging all those who believe. This will be a very divided nation for some time to come. I only hope there is no violence, though history seems to predict otherwise.

We were headed towards this dark place, like a snowball rolling down a hill. To be honest, we did not have an option to not have the snowball. But we did have the option of what hill to roll it down. Through pride, greed, and fear, we wound up here, still rolling down the hill, picking up both mass and velocity. And we do not know how big it is going to get and the full extent of the damage. 

It is a very depressing place to exist in a place where the sky is actually falling but no one believes in gravity.

Where It Is and ......

 In brief,... 

 

Around 11:30 AM today, it was announced that, after many days of counting votes, the present administration has been changed. Thankfully, there has been only a slight amount of violence. Right now, the people are dancing in the streets, literally. Yes, I cannot help but think of the ending chapter of "The Plague" where most of the city was out in the streets filled with delirious joy. It is, to say the least, beautiful to see so many people rejoicing.

We are now at 228,223 deaths from the virus and it is literally raging. It has encamped itself in every state of the country and shows no signs of letting go. Every scientist is saying that it is going to get very bad very soon. While the new treatments discovered during the first wave are helping, there were 128,000 new cases just yesterday. We are in for a long and dark winter.

As has been said for all of human history, it is not over until it actually is, and we are not over any of this. There are still almost three months of the present administration who has literally said many times recently that the virus is all but gone. The three months that remain will be critical in stemming the wave of pain and death that will be coming via all that is, at present, not being done. 

Finally, as Camus pointed out in his book, with this now massive change of one part of the narrative, life goes on. When I got the news of the election, I was working and could not stop. Outside, everyone seemed to be mowing their lawns. I just mowed my own lawn as well, as the weather is beautiful outside, warm with the glow of the Autumn sun. I will do laundry later and write a friend.

 This life, so much greater than all of our collective wants, needs, and desires, continues on, regardless.

I am just going outside, and it might be some time....drop by drop.

 When one reads history, one does not live through it...and right now, we are living through it, and it is hell.

As I type this, I just got word that people with the people who support the present administration have successfully blocked the Whitestone Bridge going into Brooklyn. Earlier this day, the stopped traffic on the Garden State Parkway and other places. Please note that this is happening when they believe they can have another four more years of this. All this week, the United States has been averaging about a thousand deaths a day from the virus, while the present administration is literally saying that it is almost gone. The only voice of reason out there is Dr. Fauci who has stated many times recently that, "we are in for a world of hurt in the days and weeks ahead."

In about thirty hours, it will be election day here in the United States and things are not looking good. Businesses in major cities have been told by their insurance companies to put plywood over their storefronts. This ominous visual is usually only seen before a hurricane, but now it is before an election. I cannot stress enough how this day was always and forever boring. There may have been some slight rumble of change in the air, but this, what we have now, is over the top and we have slid into what I have only seen happen in other countries far away. But now, it is us and we must live through it, drop by drop.

Here in new Jersey, things are not as bad as they were at their worst, but everyone has fatigue from the pandemic. The only remote cure for this is, alas, another major hit of the virus and many deaths. People forget and want what they want and it all goes to hell. This does not surprise me, as human nature never changes unless forced to for a short time. My life was literally ruined by the pandemic and I am doing the only thing I can: stay inside. 

The title of this blog post is from Lawrence Oates, an explorer who was on the tragic mission of Captain Scott to the South Pole. To make a long story short, when the crew finally made it to the pole, they saw that others had got there first. On the way back, they had many problems and Captain Lawrence Oates had gotten frostbite and gangrene. Food was scarce and, in order to not burden his fellow explorers so they could survive, he got dressed and went out into the arctic night during a blizzard. before he left, he went to Scott's tent and said, "I am just going outside, and it might be sometime..." He basically killed himself with the hope that them not carrying him  would allow the others a better chance of living.

Okay, fine, I am not going to stopwriting this buw...

I am not sure how or when i will continue this. What lays before me in the unknown soon-to-be is not good. I cannot even think of finding a Camus concept from "The Plague" to tie this together. In the end, however, it ties in perfectly with Camus and rebellion. That i where we are at now,  point of true rebellion. And, it sucks.

So, if anyone reads this and there are no more posts, I extend to you my deepest gratitude for taking the time to care enough to read this. I hope it was a clear testimony to what has happened. I, like Dr. Rieux, did my best to be honest and objective. Take what I have said as words as honest as they can get, for I served them and no one else. That was, and shall forever be,the gift of Camus.

The day of the election is closing in....

I am just going outside, and it might be some time....

May I speak to you sll before too long.