0424blog

Plague? What Plague?

After surviving my first plague, the only differences are that I am a year older, 30 pounds heavier and that’s about it. No profound changes, no existential modifications in my world view, no deep and incredible realizations, no epiphanies about life, just 30 more pounds and a year closer to the end.

I don’t know what I expected, maybe I thought that I would exit this long tunnel of darkness with profound reflections on the temporal nature of life, the fragility of the planet, a new and overwhelming appreciation about the importance of human contact, greater awareness of my physical and mental health and an overall feeling of gratitude for life. Instead I just got fatter and older and grateful that nobody in my family got gravely ill from the virus.

I am not minimizing my good fortune at remaining relatively healthy as much of the planet is still reeling and many people, particularly in poor, third world countries, have not gotten vaccinated. But here, we have all the makings of a man-made miracle as the country finally mobilized, the drug companies went into overdrive and came up with vaccines at a hyper-speed that was previously unimaginable and by now, millions upon millions of people have been vaccinated and will very likely not succumb to the virus. Rather than feel utterly and eternally grateful to the scientists who labored long into the night to develop a vaccine, many of us just say smugly, “what took you so long?” And in denial of reality, many have taken the impossibly selfish position that they don’t need or for some other reason, won’t get vaccinated as these same people threaten to overturn the successes and plunge us into another wave with another mutation of the virus.

I thought I would grow spiritually, be much more introspective about the meaning of our brief lives, be ever more grateful and appreciative of community and realize how wonderful it is simply to breath. Didn’t happen, I don’t feel closer to god and in fact, I still don’t think there is a god and I find myself struggling to just get back to the kind of normalcy I felt before the plague and as if fulfilling some psychological need, the past year seems almost like a bad dream from which I have finally awoken.

The material signs of the pandemic remain as stores and restaurants still require patrons to wear the masks, even if more people are letting the masks slip below their noses, making the masks useless and those small blue strips of tape or painted footprints remind us to keep safe distances. The lawn signs with their catchy maxims honoring health care workers and first responders as the real heroes are becoming less common, schools are open again and kids can get back to their normal innocence. The symbols of the disease are quickly fading and I expect very soon that masks will be gone, a quaint reminder that humanity in all its vanity, has been victorious in this latest, global challenge.

I do hope that those in power realize the fact that the scientists have been saying all along that there will inevitably be another virus that threatens to consume the world and that if we have learned anything, it is that science must trump (hate that word) politics and that we must be prepared but of course, that’s unlikely because politics trumps (hate that word again) most everything and has been shown to overpower science in a world where people try to live magical lives without acknowledging some pretty awful and expensive realities.

People just want to get back to living their insignificant lives without a colossal behemoth looming over them and infecting and threatening every piece of their lives. People just desperately want to get back to their false ostrich-like beliefs that everything will be alright and they want to stop washing their hands every time they return home and they want to hug and shake hands and fist bump and kiss on the cheek.

I think that for now, I am done with thinking, I am done with heavy, I am done with politics, I am done with darkness, I am done with fear, I am done with zooming, I am done with it all and I just want to get outside, cut the grass, take a walk, go to a movie, maybe waste an obscene amount of money on Broadway tickets, have a barbecue, ride my motorcycle, go to a Somerset Patriots game, plan a trip to Scotland and basically and selfishly, take for granted, everything I have. Tomorrow, I’ll get back to heavy and thinking about the meaning of existence but for now, I am chilling.