Think about it; people, good, smart, well-intended people who have made it their life’s work to improve both the quality and delivery of health care services - they are all saying, “If it is not imperative that you go out, stay at home.” The pandemic is very real. I went to my local city hall this morning to do some necessary business. I made an appointment three days ago. Scrubbed clean, with my sanitary mask properly fit, I was screened at the door. The man took my temperature and pointed me to a waiting area. Every 6 ft. there was a stripe across the floor and a spot labeled, “Stand Here”. There were no protesters over wearing masks or maintaining social distance. The people at city hall are taking Covid very seriously. On the way home after I got my business taken care of I listened to an interview on the radio; an NPR investigator and an epidemiologist from a medical school somewhere. The doctor’s message was, we still don’t know enough about the virus, how it is spread or its long term effects. They are on a steep learning curve, processing much and fast but it is only six-months-new and in the USA, the government (White House) is doing more to confuse and distract from the virus than to respond appropriately.
Forty five years ago Kenny Rogers recorded his smash hit, ‘The Gambler’. Right now it seems so suited to this brave new world with its new normal. His story is blunt, “. . .the secret to survivin’. . . is knowing what to throw away, knowin’ what to keep. . . Know when to walk away, know when to run. . . And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.” That would be nice, to die in my sleep someday, just not soon.
Too much of a bad thing just gets worse. So I try to be philosophical with the big Sick. It makes me appreciate people who were born before the WHO and CDC, before antibiotics, anesthesiologists and pain medication. Doing without and making do with what you’ve got are only slightly different shades of the same color. When I did a Master’s Thesis it had to be typed on a typewriter with three carbon copies. But scholarly work required perfection, no errors, no corrections. White-out was a brand new miracle cure for typos. Only secretaries had white-out. Just like fingernail polish, you paint liquid paper over the mis-strike and ‘Voila’ there you are! That was alright for reports and cursory research papers but not with a Thesis. It had to be perfect from the first stroke to the last. How does one write anything without spell check? Maybe that’s why all of us (graduate assistants) hired our bosses’ secretary at $1.25 a page. She edited as she went, corrected grammar, improved word selection. Donna saved our bacon on every page.
No photo copy machines then. You could cut a stencil and run 100 copies. You could patch and redo mistakes on a stencil and no one could tell but that would have been cheating. If you weren’t going to make a big run it was too much trouble. I guess the point is; you don’t miss what hasn’t been invented yet. I remember my first, Texas Instrument, hand held, four function calculator. It ran on six, AAA batteries that needed to be replaced frequently. Before that we (GA's, grad assistants) shared a mechanical adding machine with spinning dials across the top. It behaved more like an outboard motor than a calculator. You punch in the problem and hit the go key. The thing roared to life, the dials spun; in a few seconds it stopped with one number on each dial lined up in a row, in 12 different windows - the result. Repeat the action several times to rule out a malfunction. Making do with what we’ve got; that is what we are doing, what I am doing. If we had a cure for the virus now we would take two and feel better in the morning. Right now the cure is, don’t get sick.
I cling to some wannabe wisdom that sounded good, once upon a time and only improved with use. It came from my mother and I paraphrase her Faithful, born again rhetoric, not that it matters but I tend to do that. It goes; However the day arrives, regardless who sent it, it’s the only day available. Today, now, this moment is the only time that anything happens. So I’m grateful for today; I am alive right now. Gratitude is the perfect response to every condition. Be glad you feel well, well is its own reward. Be glad you feel poorly, at least you are alive. Buddha had a lot to say about suffering, that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. He advised we should all dismiss our desires and find joy in what we have. I have opted out of suffering for the time being but I need a haircut. I really, really do need a haircut.
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