How Things Work

At the height of the initial wave of the Covid Pandemic in March and April of 2020, I organized some thoughts about what was happening in the world. I think those thoughts are still valid, or at least, valid for a time when another such pandemic rocks our world.

Right now, there are some problems happening on our planet, the planet you and I share with nearly eight billion other humans. The planet that is also shared with trillions of other living things, big and small, plant and animal and everything in between. No one human on earth is bigger than the planet. None of us are more important than the planet. We are not more important than anything else living on the planet either. We are the same. We have the same importance in the grand scheme of things as every other living thing past or present. Our little babies, who can’t walk or talk or make difficult, earth-shattering decisions yet and our elderly grandparents with dementia and heart problems or cancer (or not) and everyone else, are just as important as you or I.

Right now, there are some problems happening on our planet and there are health organizations with their thousands of care-givers and medical specialists working day and night (some even dying in the process, but hopefully not in vain) to protect all of us and to decrease the impact of these problems through great and tireless efforts. There are some national and regional and local governments (the same governments that build your roads and educate your children and legislate your health care and work to ensure homes and employment) at work to stem the tide of economic collapse caused by the recent onslaught of the COVID-19 virus – a virus that also shares the planet with us. And, even though this virus is not quite living by some biological definitions, it is no less important than any of us. In fact, I suspect that it is, unknowingly, making a bid to become more important than most of us. Case in point, I hear about the Corona Virus every day, and have for the last 15 months but, I have never heard of you and you have likewise, never heard of me. But, since we share this planet equally and since we are all in this together we need to act like a team for awhile (and it doesn’t have to be forever, although it should be) and do what we need to do to make this particular virus less important than it is becoming.

There are millions and millions of people on the planet depending on the termination of the spread of this virus, for health reasons, for economic reasons, for employment reasons and for just getting back to a normal life. Every one of us who shares this planet has to ask the question, “What am I doing, for the sake of everyone, to help this situation? What am I doing to make it better?” And that doesn’t have to entail spending countless hours caring for hospital shut-ins or the like, but it should at least be self-isolating and social-distancing and hand-washing and wearing masks and getting our vaccinations along with everyone else when we are asked to do so, so we don’t add to the problem.

It seems that there are some strong, youngish, party-loving folks out there who believe they will not come in contact with the virus, or if they do, believe they will not show symptoms of any illness because of it, or if they do, believe they will only exhibit mild malaise. All that may be true. However, we are all human so we are all potential agents of transmission for COVID-19. If we are a warm, living, breathing body we are fair game for hosting the virus. We in turn, would then be agents of transmission for the virus to be spread to everyone else sharing the same air we exhale, or to everyone that we touch directly or indirectly. If that someone else happens to be my friend’s 90-year old aunt with Crone’s disease or someone else’s 1-year old daughter (who by the way, doesn’t get a say in the matter yet and who is counting on older, wiser generations to make good and unselfish decisions so that she can live as long as the rest of us have), then they may actually show symptoms and possibly die. And so, the virus continues and the economic problems continue and people continue to lose jobs and die and governments will begin or continue to “lock down” and it will take forever to get rid of this thing.

My point is that, no matter how inconvenient we think all of this may be, no matter how dictatorial we think our governments are becoming over the matter, no matter how bulletproof we think we are, and no matter how much we think we have to fight for our right to party, we need to get over being selfish and arrogant, and do what is right for a change and work together on the same team and get things back to normal. If you are being asked to self-quarantine for 14 days (as little as 0.05% of your life) without leaving home to hang out in the bar or the park with a bunch of other people or without partying all night at some Corona-fest, then just do it. If you must party, then stay at home and party with your parents or family. Don’t be the reason this thing drags on forever. Don’t be the reason other innocent people (or yourself) get really sick or die. Remember everyone, we only share the planet with the rest of civilization, we don’t own it and we have no right to screw things up for others who live here and who are just as important as us. We may not have asked to be born, but we were. So, by virtue of that fact, we have an obligation to respect the planet that gave us life and to do what we can to protect the lives of others with whom we share the rock.

What right do I have to lecture anyone? None, I suppose. But, for those people who are doing what they can to make the world a better place, this will not be a lecture. Hopefully, it will be simply a validation. It will only be a lecture for those who are serving to make things worse by acting selfishly in a troubled time.