Posts Tagged ‘news fatigue’
Scrambled Fiction
It wasn’t dark, or stormy, or even night, but that didn’t stop the hero from completing his appointed rounds. He was trying to figure out how to test his Halloween costume before the big night. It was the Emperor’s New Clothes, but would it work with a COVID mask? Probably wouldn’t matter. None of the classic costume houses were able to fulfill his request. Nobody would admit they couldn’t see the fabric.
There were no reasons left to seek an alternative. Half the people in the city would be sheltering in place. The rest would be out pretending there is nothing to worry about under the rare second full moon of the month. The only reason any of them would notice the mysterious greedy bastards had locked up the computers in all the hospitals was because it was all over the news. Filtering out the endless barrage of political ads allowed a few other strands of news to trickle through.
Nobody pays attention to that stuff anymore. After years of ridiculous daily distractions from the misdirection machine obfuscating reality, the masses have grown numb. Their stamina has been sapped. In is out and up is down. It’s easier to just make shit up than bothering to figure out what is actually going on.
Humans could take a lesson from chickens. They don’t get distracted by things that don’t matter and they won’t believe anything that isn’t visible to their glaring side-eye stare. There is a certain strength of character reflected in that.
All that character probably helps them to avoid the Halloween candy so readily available during the month of October. Now, mealworms, that would be a different thing. No chicken in its right mind could pass up that treat.
Things are a little twisted when you need to wait for snow to melt in order to finish raking leaves. But twisted is the new normal, so why not? The point isn’t to figure it all out, after all, it is to simply have a point. Otherwise, it’s all pointless.
Watch out for that guy in the Emperor’s costume. Make sure his nose isn’t hanging over the top of his mask.
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Not Knowing
If only we knew. Have I been infected? Do I have antibodies? Will illness strike someone I know? Will the economic depression last very long? Will the food supply chain normalize? Will hospitals near me become overrun? When I get the virus will I have no symptoms, or will I need to be hospitalized? Will there be a second wave?
Thus far, the COVID-19 pandemic has barely impacted my life. I could avoid contributing to the oversaturation of media information on the topic and only write about home projects and the weather as if there is no life-altering virus outbreak disrupting the world all the while. I’d prefer that, actually. But the reality is, there is an undulating ripple that is disturbing the universal foundation of how everything used to work, which makes pretending there isn’t seem conspicuously disingenuous.
Of greater distress to me than not knowing the answers to all the questions in my first paragraph is the growing reality that I no longer have plans on the calendar for going out with friends or family for dinner to celebrate events, or for going to see live music performances, or to go to the lake this summer, or take a week off work to go biking and camping with friends.
We don’t know what we are going to be doing next week, next month, all summer, or next year. That puts a real crimp in the realm of feeling hopeful and inspired.
It’s just not very sexy to replace that kind of hope with the more realistic desires of hoping we all get through this alive and with some semblance of our incomes, assets, and health still intact.
I struggle with a little guilt over feeling like I would prefer to just get the virus and be forced to stay home and do nothing for two weeks just so I could have a few days of certainty and also a little justification for allowing myself to lay in bed until I honestly didn’t want to anymore.
I’m tired. I don’t want to simply appreciate the sunlight shining on the newly blossoming flowers. Dewdrops on the grass. Pond frogs starting to sing again.
I don’t want to meditate on the zen of not knowing.
Well, maybe I do want a little of that meditation, especially in place of hearing one more government briefing about how they are going to ramp up testing or whether or not it is wise to speculate about injecting disinfectant that works on hard surfaces into human bodies.
Is it possible to inhale UV light? That might work.
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be sarcastic.
I feel for those who suffer every day with the fear of getting infected and for the people who are already suffering significant financial disruptions. As well, for those who are needing to work long hours for days and weeks on end at higher risk of infection to care for seriously ill patients.
Here’s to achieving the art of finding peace with not always knowing.
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Relative Something 