Coronavirus Journal, part 5
Advice I’ve received or come across lately:
- Keep it simple.
- Tell readers what they want to hear.
- Ditch the dogma; idle the ideology.
- Set aside ego identity, worldly fears and desires, competing theories and facts… Look within.
- Go to your room.
The last one came from an astrologer, referencing lockdown, and attributing the command to “Mother Nature.” Upon a moment’s reflection, he added, “Unless it was some idiot in a lab.”
Upon further reflection, the whole ball of wax boils down to this:
Life is deadly.
So, like, we’re gonna ban life?
Between that final solution, and its opposite—“It’s all good; anything goes”—lies a whole sea of speculation, about how to meet the “Invisible Enemy.” Our shared concern invites all manner of dreamers and schemers: from “Let’s manifest the ideal world we envision in the new paradigm,” to “Perfect, everything’s lined up as planned, sir, for the next rollout.”
Into the uncharted territory of this wild frontier rush lobbyists and libertarians; researchers and journalists; activists and gardeners; pundits and rebels of every stripe. Some proclaim the hidden target is humanity itself. And what if that is true?
I want to tell my friend who’s lost his job, “Get up, stand up! Stand up for your rights!”
But his dreadlocks, alas, are long ago shorn away, leaving only a remnant of disaffected urban angst. Plus, he’s Canadian. And a GenX white male. Upon reflection I realize if I care so much, with my own booming soapbox, I should fight for him, in sacred solidarity, thereby spending some of my privilege.
Then he reminds me that the Xers too got tear gassed more than enough times, and nothing ever came of it. So will it work this time—or will we both step aside and leave it to the Zedders to fix everything?
For myself, I hardly feel it’s a matter of choice. I face the challenge, attempting to wield the truth as I can best define it, with the words that arrive for my disposal. You, in turn, are free, if you wish, to take them under advisement.
Back on the ranch of my confinement… if Mama Earth commands me to go to my room, so be it. If it’s Big Daddy because he doesn’t want me to see him fucking the multicolored elephant in our living room, I take a deep breath.
And he’ll counter that it’s his living room, he bought it with his own exceptional genius and philanthropic hard work, and he can use it or misuse it as he damn well pleases. So go to your room and shut up.
“Yes sir,” he taught me always to say. He was military.
So what’s my angst, my problem, my beef with the new normal world being offered on a disinfected platter? The new paradigm, c’mon get used to it be happy and move on? Besides it is futile to resist?
Such advice comes even from within, learned from the incessant voices of a lifetime. In essence they agree: “Who do you think you are, another Kennedy, or Zapata? Well good luck with that.”
If saving even a single life is the goal here, the inner man has a point. I can almost dig it, shelter in place awhile longer. Suck it up, watch some more reruns.
Who knows, in the meantime everyone else might be having some of the same thoughts, about what it all means and where it all lands. For a few beats more, we’ll take it all with a lick of salt. We’ll take it under advisement.
