Keeping our heads above water in the time of Covid-19

Inspired by a post from Grant Fritchey.

I used to have Eagle Vision. I was tested at 30/20, which means I could see at 30 feet what most people could see at 20.
I remember going to the eye doctor, deeply concerned about my vision. "Doc, I feel like I'm going blind. I can't see anything anymore".
The eye doctor very sweetly replied, "You're down to 20/20 in one eye. You're still 30/20 in the other. In one eye, you see like a normal person now. You'll live."

I made it past 40 before needing reading glasses, and then just-like-that, *BAM!* ... bifocals ...  (#OLDGuysWithComputerEyes)

I'm not gonna lie - I spent some time mourning my Eagle Vision. To this day, I genuinely miss being able to see teeny tiny print that nobody else can see, or being able to make out fine details or something in the distance that those around me can't make out.

Mostly, though, I genuinely miss getting through my day without having to fiddle with glasses. I'm too dingy to keep track of them. I lose them on top of my head, and they're always missing when I have somewhere important to go and I'm not allowed to drive without them. :-/

Right. So, I have an obvious choice to make.

I can whine and cry and lament how, to quote Toby Keith, "I'm not as good as I once was."

- OR -

I can take a deep breath and let it out slowly, thanking God for the clever people who developed the wonderful technology ( glasses ) that my excellent job pays for to correct my vision so that I can see things that my ancestors and so many in the world today would not be able to see at my age and with eyes in my condition.

So, get to the point. Glass half full, right? 

Not really. I'm not normal. You're sweet to laugh, but I mean it. I'm contrary and defective in a lot of mildly interesting ways.

For instance:
During quarantine, I find I'm living my best life. I don't have to go to the things and suffer the social anxiety and gut out the endless, huge gatherings. I have all of my children back under my roof. We're not spending all of our money running to this and that, so my bank account runneth over, which is REALLY weird.

How can that be?
Well, because of my spiritual practice, I've made peace with some things that I don't think most people do.
I've made peace with impermanence.
I've made peace with that fact that I'm going to grow old, get sick, and die.
I've made peace with the fact that, not only will this happen to me, but to those I love.

Don't get me wrong. Understanding the way pain works doesn't make pain less painful.
But it does allow us to create distance between us and the reality of it, and it does allow us to surrender our anxiety over the pain that's coming and replace it with acceptance.

For you, right now, life is what it is for me during more normal days. It's a game played in the mind.

Like so many things in life (having a clean house or car, being organized, maintaining a healthy weight, etc), I've found that mental health takes time and effort, but it's *generally* not rocket science.  (Please understand that this is not true for everyone. I think for most of us, though, it holds up.)

Make time to breathe deeply. Fear is a produce of our reptilian core, and the pathways from our high mind don't really reach down there. Our breath connects our mind to our bodies to our deeper mind.
Make time to focus on things that make you happy.
Make time to remind yourself that most of the negative things don't matter. That's hard right now, because so many of the negative things REALLY DO matter. But they are nonetheless beyond our control.

Which leads me to the next point...

If at all possible, make peace with the fact that it is our nature to grow old, to get sick, and to pass away. This is hard. Having done it, though, I can attest that life is much better on the other side of that effort.

And, finally, make time to be thankful.

So, I'll go first.

Thank you, little glasses, for allowing me to see this ridiculous long thing I just typed.
Thank you, ridiculous job, for creating structure in my life and providing me with good pay and benefits.
Thank you, body, for holding up so well against 46 years of profound abuse. (to be clear, that's me, abusing it with sugar, loud music, etc.)

I hope you're right about Covid-19

 I hope you're right.

I hope it's just overblown, breathless nonsense concocted by the liberal media.

I hope this is all a hoax that the libtards cooked up when they got bored with peddling climate change.

I hope it's a Machiavellian plot by the DNC to get the mighty Trump out of office.

I hope that it's no worse than the flu.

I hope that Biden goes to jail and the world acknowledges that the election was stolen and Trump gets back in office and can can put everything right with the world again.

I hope that Obama was born in Kenya.

I hope he's a Muslim and a terrorist and a radical.

I hope that the 2008 bailout really was a government takeover of the auto industry and we've all just failed to see it.

I hope that Sharia law takes over. No, wait. I hope that it was really going to, but then was somehow thwarted by Rush Limbaugh as his last, heroic, dying act. Or something.

I hope that Fox News announces an investigative report of all the people that were killed by the death panels in the healthcare bill.

I hope that Elvis is still alive, that he's happily married to a mermaid, and that they're living in the sound studio that was used to film the moon landings.

Honestly, I'm not even joking. I really hope that, because it's the last hope we have.

You'd better be right. You have to be right. Because there is no opportunity for any other course than the one we're on.

I've never wanted more to be wrong, because it looks to me like people are lying to you and laughing all the way to the bank.

... Again ...

It looks to me like the vaccine is way < 100% effective.

It looks to me like ain't nobody gonna be wearing no goddam masks to make sure they don't give a deadly respiratory infection to their friends and neighbors - a respiratory infection that is even more serious than last year; that took at least 6 people I knew in 2020, and that hospitalized four others. (2 of which still haven't "bounced back")

You guys are in charge. Seriously. You on the right. You run the world, or at least the part I live in.

You'd better be right.

You'd better be right, or this is going to get really ugly really fast.

Covid-19 in Lee County

 I don't even know how to put this into words, so I'm just going to start writing and see what develops.

Someone close to me (very close, but to remain nameless) told me about a coworker who died of Covid-19. She was in her 40's.

I was just on a meeting with a friend/colleague who told me her bother-in-law died of Covid-19. He was in his 40's.

I understand being distrustful of big for-profit pharmaceutical agencies and the government agencies that are charged with regulating them. I really, really do. Somewhere there's a picture of me signing a book that I wrote entitled "I don't trust for-profit pharma or the government agencies tasked with regulating it, by Joe Hayes."

I understand being upset about mask mandates. Nobody likes being told what to do.

What I don't understand, what I REALLY don't understand, is actually needing a mask mandate. Why are we not falling all over ourselves to put a harmless piece of cloth across our face in the hopes that it might, even just maybe, protect our friends and community from this wrecking-ball of a respiratory infection.

But then, here's me. I'm not wearing one, either. The social pressures of living in an area where we don't believe in moon landings *OR* the efficacy of masks, and being the only one wearing a mask most places I went, became too much. I comfort myself by saying I'm fully vaccinated so I don't need a mask. I don't think I really believe that, though. I think I just became exhausted from the stares and the feeling of freakishness of being the only one in a room with a mask on. Oh, and by the way, when I'm the only one in the room with a mask on, it's nearly 100% pointless. (Not quite, but nearly)

I'm just so overwhelmed with sadness, disappointment, and yes, anger ... that the people who started off not believing Covid-19 even existed then moved on to thinking it's just the flu or that masks would bring about the mark of the beast or were a government plot to take away our freedoms, and that they *STILL* don't appear to have sort of looked around, realized that they were taken for a ride, and come back to sanity. (Am I wrong? Maybe they have and I just don't see it) And, again, why would mandates even be needed? Masks are such a simple, harmless, obvious thing to do ... :-( How hard do you actually have to work to not see that?

I'm so sad to realize that they're going to keep listening to the people who have told them these things, and quite the opposite of holding them accountable for the destruction they've contributed to, they're going to find ways to deny a connection, and to keep believing them when they say new, destructive, untrue things, because it's all just a team sport, and who cares if we burn the world down as long as our team is winning? :-/

I'm so incredibly disappointed to realize that we're just sort of letting people die, because people thought they could make political hay out of Covid-19, or spread nonsense on their talk show or YouTube channel, and laugh all the way to the bank.

We're just letting people die, because fuck your feelings, I guess.

It's so goddam weird to me.

And this is where I live. I feel like Spock on the Enterprise, one eyebrow raised quizzically, trying to figure out what makes you "humans" tick.

It's just so goddam weird to me.