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.

9/11, Afghanistan, and the question of nation building

 When 9/11 happened, I remember telling my wife that we would definitely find some country to invade and invade it, and there was nothing that could stop that, because we were hurt and frightened and angry. 100%, that's what was going to happen. (And it did).

My HOPE was that we would, given some time; settle down enough to realize this was a new kind of conflict, evaluate how best to prosecute a conflict where tanks and bombs were bit-players next to the primary role of intelligence, and ultimately develop that capability. I still HOPE that this happened, and there is certainly evidence that we are more capable at spotting potential attacks on our soil than we were before. Internationally? I don't see any evidence of this, but that may well be by design.

OH! And then we invaded Iraq. :-/

I might be the only person you'll ever hear say this, but I think George H.W. Bush (Bush 41, not Bush 43) was the best president of my lifetime. He lived through WW2 and the cold war. He served and he lead. He got it.

I listened to him (and Colin Powell, who I respected immensely at one time) tell me "Say we go "all the way to Baghdad". What then? Well, you broke it, you bought it. We'll be there for 20-30 years, and we'll lose 2-3 people per week the entire time we're there. And then when we leave, the entire region will destabilize and we'll be replaced by something even worse than before we arrived."

I see friends arguing whether Biden f'd this up, or if it's somehow Trump's fault. I honestly, and humbly, think you're missing the plot.

We've *GOT* to finally learn the lesson of Viet Nam. (And Afghanistan, and Iraq, and even Iran if you're familiar with that history).

Every time we engage in "nation building", it goes horribly wrong. We wreck a generation of beautiful young people, the same pattern plays out, and things end up worse.

Please, "We the People" ... learn this, and demand that our leaders understand it, as GHW Bush did.

The next time they're talking about it, raise a ruckus. Don't let them do this, again, to our young patriots who want to serve.

Imposter Syndrome

There are a lot of things in my life I don't get right. Honestly, it's a really long list.

However, one of the things I feel like I'm pretty good at is overcoming imposter syndrome.

My methods, in case you would find them of benefit, follow.

1) Get comfortable with the idea that you're an idiot. Sorry. I don't make the rules 🤷 There's too much to know and nobody knows it all.

2) Be observant enough to recognize that everyone else is an idiot, too.

3) Be humble enough to say, "I don't know that yet, let's learn it together."

4) Be generous enough to share openly the things that you do know, even with people who might be in competition with you at some level. Their success is your success, and inhibiting their career growth is a bad move.

Again, there are all sorts of things I'm not in a good at, but I do this fairly naturally, and it's served me well.

Best of luck

A reminder from Thich Nhat Hanh ...

https://youtu.be/u24OR-FN78w?t=760 (12:40) ... "One day, a leader of the native American community came to me. We met in Vermont, and he invited me to join him in Europe and others to speak about the plight, the suffering of the native Americans, to draw the attention of the world to that suffering. I invited [him] to sit down and have a cup of tea with me, and very slowly I tried to tell him that the first step is not that. The first step is that he go home to his community and help his community to practice these kind of basic things; like the 5 mindfulness trainings: creating brotherhood, sisterhood, awakening ... to free our selves from wrong perceptions, from discrimination. Because, discrimination does not only exist in them. Discrimination does exist in each of us. We have both Hell and Paradise in us. They also [do]. So, if we are capable of touching paradise and transforming hell in us, we will be able to help them touch the paradise in them and transform hell in them. They are no longer our enemies. They are the people we want to help. But, we have to help our self first. It's not a problem of protesting. Because we can see them as victims of their wrong perceptions, of their own ignorance, and fear, and violence. And that is why, to me, it is very very crucial, it is very urgent to go home to ourselves, and to our community, and to begin the real practice. "

Race Riots

I'd like to think of myself as a pretty decent human being. I keep my lawn mowed, raise my kids, and go to work every day. I'm a good husband to one woman. I donate my time and my treasure to the organizations and people I believe in. I try to help people where I can. 

But, here's the deal: 

If you hit me, as much as I might try to turn the other cheek, I might hit you back. If you hit me repeatedly after I've told you you're hurting me, that likelihood goes up.

If you target my children, my friends, my family, the likelihood of me hitting back becomes greater still.

If you kill my children, well ... God knows what I might do.

If you hold my head under water long enough, I'm going to become violent trying to escape.

You would, too, and if you have any sense at all, you know it.

If you make someone sufficiently angry and hopeless, particularly if they're young and male, they're going to flip the table and burn the world down. This is well documented sociology. 

It's human nature. It's not good. It's not bad. It's not any other value judgement you'd like to place on it. It simply *IS*.

Kindness

I remember listening to the story of a woman who received a diagnosis of terminal cancer.

She was stunned. 

She spoke of the rage that welled up within her at the utter unfairness of it, and of a bottomless and permeating despair.

How could she live what remained of her life? How could she face the day? How could she put one foot in front of the other for what remained of her journey? 
The epiphany came, she related, in bringing to mind these words from the leader of her spiritual order:  In all circumstances, be kind.

That was her path forward. 

That's amazing to me.

In that moment, this brave, beautiful woman has cancer. She's going to die soon. Soon. What is she going to do?

She is going to strive at all times to remember the suffering of others, and to be kind.

She is going to be kind to the people who give her chemo.

She is going to be kind to people who are uncomfortable around her because her mortality frightens them. 

She is going to be kind to people who hurt her.

She is going to be kind to people who are hurting *with* her.

Most of all, she is going to be kind to those precious people who fail in their attempts to be strong for her, because they are already beginning to mourn her, even as she lingers.

Even in the depths of despair, through tears and pain, as this precious human life is taken from her in a way that is as unspeakably senseless as it is bewildering and cruel ...

She is going to remember the suffering of others.

She is going to make effort to reduce their suffering.

She is going to be kind. 

I was utterly blown away by this.

This saint is several years gone, now. But I believe, in the manner of her passing, she set an example for how you and I should live.

It's so easy to look at the outrages around us and to despair. 

It's so easy to become focused on our own suffering and to lash out. 

It's so easy to become frustrated or emotionally exhausted - "weary in well-doing." 

But, my prayer is, no matter what may happen, and as Almighty God gives me strength; may I in all things remember the suffering of others. 

May I always remember to be kind.

#myreligioniskindness