Sorry for the melodramatic title but please, grant me a moment of your time and you'll see that, if nothing more, those words are rooted in truth.
I've noticed what appears to be a common theme emerging from the COVID crapfest. I could be overthinking or completely wrong but it seems as if the
string-pullers at the top would
really like to see the social distancing aspect of the pandemic become a permanent practice, an accepted way of
life.
I'm sure many will argue that minimizing interaction, indefinitely if need be, is necessary for future suppression. Be that as it may, I firmly
believe that life in fear-fueled isolation is so far removed from actual life - life well-lived - that you might as well be dead.
In my (limited) view it seems as if we, as a society,
as a species, are being herded into a vast, cold darkness where each of us will exist
alone, suffer alone, die alone. But, at least in our final lonely moment we can take comfort in knowing that whatever the agent of our demise it
almost certainly wasn't communicable.
So onward we shuffle, obligingly, quietly,
safely. into our new normal. The only remaining fear now lies close ahead, though most won't see it
- won't allow themselves to see it - the approaching point of no return.
Don't believe our society could ever, as a whole, be so easily led to such an end? Can't envision the United States as a nation of timid, willful
inmates? How about
an entire planet imprisoned thusly, cells locked tight by their own trembling hand?
I'm reminded of advice my Grandpa offered when learning that, per parental law, I had refused to fight back when attacked by a school bully. The man
had leapt straight into Hell's mouth over Normandy and slogged his way through an ocean of gore enroute to Germany simply because, as he put it, he
had a job to do. So, when he talked of fighting I damned sure listened.
"Boy," he said, "don't you swallow so much sh#t in life that ya start likin' the taste." To which I replied, "Huh?"
He stooped to meet my gaze, gripping both my scrawny shoulders in iron hands. And with a hushed ferocity he spoke only two words,
"FIGHT.
BACK!"
What made little sense to that oblivious ten-year-old now stands stark and crystalline, the meaning so clear as I watch a cold new world loom large on
the horizon. So, I stand here, in the remnants of life once known, anchoring my feet in ashes of the familiar, and face whatever evil this way
comes.
Because this old man never did like the taste of sh#t.
edit on 22-4-2020 by ChayOphan because: (no reason given)