Good rrrrrrriddance 2020!!! Am I right? Wasn’t this just the worst year of our lives? The new virus, the pandemic, the masks, sanitizer, hand washings, ‘social’ distancing, school closings, toilet paper shortages, grocery store runs, mandatory shutdowns, mass unemployment, two-week quarantines, hospitalizations, culminating in nick-of-time vaccines … and with all that precaution, still so many deaths? Earlier in the year when we were learning about the novel coronavirus in New York City, Texans including yours truly thought such tragedy could never happen here because we’re spread out with lots of land, unlike cramped, stacked tiny NYC. By year’s end, Texas now ranks first in Covid-19 cases and second in Covid-19 deaths, right behind New York.
The whole situation seems so … unnecessary, like it could have been prevented, at least cut short from spreading worldwide. Yet history tells us humanity has lived through many plagues, most more gruesome and deadly than our novel coronavirus and certainly without the comparably comfortable modern hospitals, medical procedures and medications. It’s just that this being the high-tech 21st century, where our sights were more in outer space than back here on earth, we thought plagues were a thing of the past. With our space-age bio science and vaccines, surely modern man could ward off a new bug. Were we so wrong! And by we, I mean those of us most fortunate to live in the First World. This kind of panic, pandemonium, and inability to control the spread of a new disease is common in Third World countries, not the awesomely powerful ‘We’re Number One’ USA. Americans thought we had become immune to pandemics.
A pox on all our houses
Some blame China for not telling the world about the new virus in the beginning, which may have prevented the worldwide financial devastation and health crises of a pandemic. China is to blame in that it is a communist nation. Why do we keep forgetting that? Yeah, there are communist nations still on planet Earth, and they’re not going away. Contrary to American popular belief, communism did not die out in favor of capitalism. Communism is China’s core thought and instinct. Communism means the government takes priority over its people. Therefore, a communist nation would treat the rest of us with the same disregard. We humans are not important to a communist nation. China has no need to tell us anything, and its leaders have no shame about it. How many “Twilight Zone” episodes do we need to re-watch to understand authoritarian government?
The bottom line is it doesn’t matter who started the pandemic, how, when or even why. When it comes to this historic costly deadly health crisis, as the TV stars tell us, “We’re all in this together.” What a strange motto considering we’re warned against hugging each other, shaking hands, standing closer than six feet or even spending time with friends and family who do not live in our home? Each of us feels utterly alone during this pandemic. Social media and video calls are a poor substitute for human contact. Even the dying cannot be comforted by their loved ones face to face in the same room.
The breath of our life
The word ‘disease’ is metaphysically broken down into the syllables ‘dis-ease,’ the belief being we tend to experience illness when we are emotionally and/or spiritually uneasy about issues unrelated to physical wellness. Hmm. But the New Age philosophy falls apart when so many healthy people get sick and even die from a disease especially a new one. A pandemic is unfair. Or is it?
Take the philosophy a step further, however, and consider the new disease: a lung infection that affects our ability to breathe. The affliction can become so severe, it engulfs the lungs, leaving them frozen and unable to function without a respirator. The ill are suffocating, and some will surely die.
Hasn’t the slogan of a large protesting segment of American society been “I can’t breathe?” It’s on T-shirts, caps and now face masks. And didn’t that chant start a few years prior to the novel coronavirus? “Think!” John Lennon sang in a song long ago.
Well, enough hippie mumbo jumbo. Who knows why we got here and have to endure another pandemic, formerly known in the olden days as plague? Now that many of us will be taking the Covid-19 vaccine in 2021, we can start to view the pandemic with 20/20 vision. The biggest take-away is we should never become so arrogant to think the world cannot be knocked down to the ground by a virus, because obviously it can happen again. Our government leaders and citizens must rethink what or who is more important when it comes to surviving hard economic times. Whether communist or capitalist, a country is just dirt without people.
In another song, Lennon wished us well with a Happy New Year, the chorus concluding: “Let’s make this a good one without any fear.”
Cheers! To you and yours, all the very best!