It occurred to me today that I just don’t know what to think, a lot of the time.

Yesterday, in Maybe (Part 1), I began a monologue on my impressions of how the pandemic is going, specifically related to the American response, and the extent to which we seem to be floundering.

If you ask me, we’ve all gotten pretty soft, here in America, especially when it comes to having to deal with adversity. I guess that’s to be expected when we’re talking about what probably amounts to the richest society to ever have had dominion on the face of the earth. Most Americans, living in their luxury and abundance, have never had to really come to terms with the notion that life can be hard. Of course, this is relative, so before you go off on me, telling me that you’ve lived a hard life, think twice. If you haven’t had to walk ten miles round-trip everyday, for the last ten years, so that you could bring two five-gallon buckets full of dirty water home to your mother and father and fellow siblings so they could have something to drink, I don’t want you to be embarrassed when I point out that the poorest people living in America are among the richest people in the world, from an economic standpoint.

What percentage of Americans would have a mental breakdown if you asked them to walk ten miles in a day, just to collect ten gallons of muddy water?

I think I might.

* * *

Yesterday, I used the analogy of a person hiding from a would-be killer, trying to be as quiet as you can. I think I want to develop that analogy a little bit, if you’ll allow me.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when the media was responding with reassuring messages via the news outlets and the celebrities, I remembered them saying, repeatedly, “We’re all in this together.”

So, imagine being in the closet, hiding from the killer, with five people. Then, not only is it your responsibility to remain quiet, to keep all five of you from dying, but it is the responsibility of the other four people in the closet to do the same. I think of countries like New Zealand and South Korea, that did their best to try to follow this type of an approach –mutual social responsibility– but even those countries are starting to see upticks in case numbers, because sustained effort requires stamina. Stamina, no matter how decent it is, eventually runs out.

Sometimes, when I think about the American approach to the pandemic, I imagine myself in a closet, being quiet, trying to hide from the would-be killer, while the person next to me is watching YouTube videos on their phone at max volume. “We don’t even have a chance”, I’m thinking to myself.

I myself am embarrassed by our nation’s response to this crisis.

The irony here is this: now that we are starting to have to look down the barrel of a prolonged pandemic, because our responsibility and our stamina are not what they could have been, the people who are most uncomfortable with those realities are some of the same people who’ve brought the consequences down on all of us.

If you shoot yourself in the foot, and then discover that you don’t like having to walk on crutches, here’s what you do –> don’t shoot yourself in the foot.

If you drive your car into a tree, and then discover that you don’t like taking public transportation, here’s what you do –> don’t drive your car into a tree.

Choices have consequences, and it’s the worst kind of whining when you complain about the realities that you are having to live through because of the choices that you’ve made.

But, then I come back to New Zealand and South Korea –> even after a successful effort to put an end to their pandemic problems, they’re back at the drawing board. Their populations weren’t able to ‘hold the line’ for very long.

Maybe, it doesn’t really matter what we do in response to the the pandemic.

Maybe, but South Korea and New Zealand have a combined 328 deaths out of a combined population of 56.5 million people. If we’d handled things in America as they handled things in their countries, our death toll right now would be about 1,900 people, rather than 170,000.

* * *

It just occurred to me, as I am working this analogy in my mind, for the second day now, that there are people that I know who want to storm the doors open on the closet where we’ve been hiding, to try to take the would-be killer by force.

It’s a simple philosophical difference, when you stop to think about it. Let’s stop hiding. Let’s start fighting.

Maybe it’s just the negative attitudes, that sometimes come with this approach, that bother me.

I could probably be convinced –sitting in the closet, afraid and as quiet as can be– by my fellows, if they decided that they wanted to stop hiding. Who wants to be the victim? Who wants to sit and wait for the would-be killer to come? We should stand! We should do what we can to overcome!

Remember, yesterday, when I talked about us being determiners?

The problem is, there isn’t a lot of that going around these days, at least not that I’ve been hearing much about, with respect to the pandemic.

Rather, correct me if I’m wrong –please, I want you to– but I’ve mostly been hearing 1) the voices of those who would have us follow the directions of the scientists as we socially distance and as we wear our masks, which all ends up sounding so conservative and cautious, or 2) the amazingly simplistic arguments of people who seems to be very gung-ho about doing what they want, and ignoring the advice they’re being given, and “SCREW YOU, I’M FREE”.

Maybe it’s just that those are the voices that I’ve been tuning in to.

* * *

I think I am suffering from some kind of a problem, here. I just can’t seem to get over all of this. The more I think about it, the more I get wrapped up in it. Then, I start a downward spiral of negative thinking about irresponsible people that gets me to hating my neighbor, which I know I’m not supposed to do.

Just a couple of hours ago, I was in a meeting for an organization that I do some work for, and the leaders of that organization were discussing some of the issues facing the organization, and I was thinking about casting my ‘doom and gloom’ outlook. Instead, I stopped to listen to others and what they had to say.

I was glad to hear that there are other people around me, people that I trust and respect, who think that there are reasons for hope, and reasons for optimism. I guess, MAYBE, I need to tune in to those voices a little bit more in my life.

I take that back; there’s no maybe about that one.