On every street, every car, every surface in nature and at the streets are rising and you'd rather sing "Don't let them take control. No, we won't let 'em take control."
Yes, I feel a little bit nervous. Yes, I feel nervous and I cannot relax. I'm coming 'round to get us. I'm coming 'round when they don't know the facts.
Coldplay - "Hurts Like Heaven"
As I write this, the country is still trying to parse whether the president called for scientists to test whether disinfectants can be used inside the human body, the stock market is set for "modest" losses this week, nearly 10k more Americans are dead, 25m more are out of work, and I'm sitting in a virtual paradise with birds looking to fuck and trees that are more than happy to take advantage of the lack of air pollution.
The trees stretch out their branches to the sky, unroll their leaves, and say, "Blessed is the earth, for she has delivered us."
Or something like that.
This disease is weird in so many ways, but one of the things that strikes me is how it makes everyone who tries to contend with the fallout have to play God. What does it mean that maybe a million+ people will have died this year than were "supposed" to die this year? What do we mean by the word "supposed"? Says who? According to what? Statistics?
I hear people arguing that 30k Americans die in car crashes every year so why are we so worried about coronavirus, and I can't help but think that they aren't making the argument they think they are. Rather than seeing how inconsequential COVID deaths are, I see how inherent brutal modern life is. Rather than asking, "Why are we so afraid of corona?" I ask, "Why are we ok with 30k people dying in car crashes?"
Why are we so ok with death as long as we don't have to look at it?
Well, I'm not ok with it. People die, we all die. I get it. But I'm not ok with a system that uses human beings and animals and the earth itself as disposable grist for a mill that only comforts and abides by a select few. I'm not ok with shrugging and accepting the avoidable deaths of people unlucky enough to not be born in the right place and right time, with all the implied victim-blaming in the complacency.
Everyone dies, and a lot of the time it's very very unpleasant. Death should be feared. And celebrated too for the awesome event that it is. Birth and death are the only two experiences every living creature on this planet share in common, and in the middle of these two is life itself. When we shrug at the deaths of people far away or who we think "had it coming," we're not just throwing their deaths away, we're also saying their lives didn't matter either.
I'm not ok with that.
And you shouldn't be either.