DEAR DIARY: DAY 54

Dear Diary; day 54. The grim reality of Covid-19 is beginning to sink in. After three months we realize that we are still in the early phase of global pandemic. Time has a way of dulling memory and minimizing things that hurt us and have passed. Look forward  to possibility rather than dwell in the wreckage of that other memory. “We’re going to whip this thing soon and come back better than before. Trust me!” DT doesn’t have to make it through the pandemic. All he cares about is winning in November. In 1918 the Spanish Flu did pretty much everything that Covid-19 has the potential to do. It took two years to run its course. The big difference as I see it is that we have a century’s worth of new knowledge and technology that they didn’t have. Still, we were unprepared and will be playing catch up until the window closes.

Even though we know the demographics of who is at higher risk, we don’t know about the long term aftermath of the infection. If only 5% of those infected die immediately, there is no way to know how the other 95% will fare over time. Mother Nature would say, "The gene pool needs stirring." As this story unfolds we become characters in the plot with no say in the script. 

I write to understand more so than to be understood. I am not preaching, just trying to get my head around this and to process my feelings. I can manipulate any rational approach but feelings have always overruled logic. My influence on my own feelings is indirect, the result of collective experience and what I make of it. I can mitigate some of it with brain-washing but that result is temporary and loses potency over time. In the end, the brain’s Amygdala, ’Fight/Flight’ makes the call when fear and anxiety are involved. 

As long as I stay busy I manage. But under house arrest, living alone, it’s easy to default and lose your way. Keeping social (physical) distance makes it hard to acquire things like garden plants and tools. If I want to grow green things this year I’ll have to solve that riddle soon. My wood shop is at hand and I’m sure it will turn to glue and sawdust rather than fret over what I can’t control. I remember when I planned next week and next month but getting through the day is about all I can handle in the  present. 

I’ve never been a flag-waving patriot. From my Army days I could neither ignore nor justify the fractious, arrogant side of nationalism and its self righteous exploitation of the underclass. What passes for freedom is a cleverly distorted matrix of privilege and license. Still, as Coronavirus demonstrates, nature does not discriminate. I feel sad and helpless as the whole world, as my country is reeling from this storm. Most will survive but nobody is immune. I never identified as an old man but I feel all of it now. All at once I’m at a new beginning and I hadn’t planned for that, it is scary. One thing that hasn’t changed with me is the belief: we do spectacular things when viewed through our own gilded lens but baboons would make the same claim if they had a few more neurons and language. Our leaders and wanna be leaders are more concerned with coming out on the other side with more power and wealth than they are about what happens to ordinary citizens. What happens to people who don’t contribute to their campaigns doesn’t matter. Reminds me of, Lord Of The Rings. Frodo, where are you when we need you?