Wednesday, April 8, 2020

"What the HELL is going on?" A weird, surreal time





I was going to do a lot of ranting today, mainly because certain people in my life have said things like, "Well, you can't do anything about it" and "it will just have to run its course". And yes, logically, both of those things are true.

But there is this.

To me, the "can't do anything about it", shrugging-off view is kind of like coming up to a weeping person at a funeral and saying, "Crying won't bring him back." To ME, usually out of step with pretty much everything, that only makes it worse, but some apparently believe they are offering a dose of logic and sound advice. Those who weep must just snap out of it, or stand corrected. It's the only view that makes any sense.

Even close friends of mine, or people who WERE close friends of mine, say I am overreacting and it's a waste of energy - in the category of "shrug - let's get on with it", and I do not find that helpful. 




No doubt MANY will say my "approach" is too negative, doomsday thinking, etc. and I should just wait for it to pass. "We're all in this together," people continually say, but I feel profoundly isolated and alone. I'm just not chipper enough, and my sleeves aren't rolled up enough to suit everybody.

And where is the leader of the free world? Not on any known planet. And WHAT is he but a complete idiot with a low IQ, a sociopath who only knows how to make money, a man who contradicts himself wildly every day, a man who campaigned on "How I love the undereducated!" - and WON. But if he rides out the curve of this pandemic without dying, I know he will win again. It's the American way.

I only complain now because the States continues to do appalling things, and no doubt this Easter Sunday will bring the usual public mega-church services, when stats are showing that up to 3/4 of people who go to those mass meetings come back infected. "But that's the STATES, Margaret!" (This is, of course, a separate universe, a separate reality.) "We're relatively safe up here. What are you so concerned about?" 





I've been told it's no good to obsess about statistics, which are just numbers. Why do I do it? It doesn't make my life any better, DOES IT?  But maybe, just maybe, I'd rather die of overreaction than be deadened by a world view that leaves people less than human, and worse than dead.