The Times of Covid-19

Lately we expend so much energy talking about our political condition, that we are not paying attention to the evolution of our selves and how are lives are changing.  These are not normal times.  In fact, these times of Covid-19 are a catalyst for introspection and evaluation of where our lives have taken us and where we now want our lives to go.  It is always some cataclysmic event or circumstance that stops us short and offers a moment for contemplating the whole of our lives.

I find that my routines have all changed.  It is both refreshing and unnerving.   Interacting with friends, family and acquaintances is now primarily with screens:  tv, internet, I-phone.  Suddenly we are making dates for cocktails or dinner by Zoom.  It is reassuring to see and be with all these people in my life electronically, but there is a critical ingredient in all these interactions that is missing.  The presence of another ‘life force’ in close physical proximity to our bodies adds a certain zest that is missing in these screen relationships.  However it is one of the more pleasurable side effects that has resulted from this crisis.  It is reassuring and comforting to have these moments with close friends and family.

My life has always been preoccupied with work or our company.  Our new existence has suddenly made all that basically irrelevant.  There is no work, and all the pseudo lists of things to do are actually not pressing at all.  The only thing that is pressing is the making of a plan to go forward in a new reality.   I am living in moments when my emotions take precedence because the minutia of my work experience has evaporated.  Maybe it is the stress we are all under, but I have moments when my anxiety and stress are almost overwhelming.  Sometimes I am angry without a discernible cause other than a pervasive sense of ennui.  My realization of that calms me down……most times---other times I reach for the Xanax!

So what now, I ask myself.  Is this the time to fold the tents and really ‘retire’?  Do we sell the house; or rent the guest house; or move to a place ½ the size in the mountains?  How much do we really need to live on?  If we moved, would we really:  a) be safer;  b) be content to start over again; c) lose all our friends and connections made here in the 18 years we have lived in Naples?  These are big questions!  And I have to believe that we are not the only ones searching for those answers.  We have been fortunate in life—we have our health; we have our skills which will always allow us to do what we do best; we have our family that has shown itself to be intact and solid.  What more is there in life, really??  

Once you realize that your personal inventory of risk factors is manageable, then you analyze the environment you are living in or through. 

I am a patriot.  I am anguished at what has happened to our country.  The condition of our government is appalling.  This global crisis has shown me how dysfunctional the US Government is.  All the ‘Never Trumpers’ always warned that his Presidency would be a real disaster in a global crisis, and now we have ample evidence that their fears were justified.  This Covid 19 crisis has shown that the most powerful and richest country in the world in the hands of a man like Trump cannot mount a coordinated campaign to bring our vast economic, scientific and public health resources to bear.  There is NO plan for how to allocate resources; NO plan to institute nationwide testing to control the virus epidemic; NO real plan for economic recovery.  Does Trump’s rambling, sociopathic, narcissistic behavior give any of us real confidence in our federal government’s ability to be ahead of developing events?   The Republicans and Trump have spent the past 4 years disassembling the tools and safeguards that  would have enabled that ability.

 

But what is also revealed is that one of the two major political parties in power does not believe in democracy.  It has become apparent that as a party they fully support autocracy, and are willing to surrender their ethics and morality.  Republicans do not believe in everyone’s right to vote.  Republicans believe in gerrymandering voting districts to control state legislatures.  What happened in Wisconsin this past week is the template they intend to use for the national election in November.  Voter obstruction and disenfranchisement is their ticket to remaining in power.  They have already declared their opposition to voting by mail…and with the administration's ability to defund the US Postal Service in May, they will achieve their goal of inhibiting our ability to vote using the most obvious method to insure voter accessibility--the US Mail.  Their claim of postal fraud is unsupported and unwarranted!

Republicans do not believe that science should determine our path in this public health emergency.  Rather, their only concern, to the apparent exclusion of any scientific evidence, advice or projections, is to ‘open’ the economy.  Do they care that their actions might result in a second more intense wave of virus infection?  No.  They don’t seem to care that the death of more people might be the result.  We should all come to the realization that the Republican Party in the United States of America is the party of …….death.

So now the country’s choice in November is pretty clear….do we want another four years of what we are living through now; what even Trump's most ardent supporters are getting a clear-eyed view of?  If the American people choose another four years of ‘this’, then democracy will die, along with thousands more of our citizens.  The American experiment will have failed, and we will be the ones that the history books will declare surrendered it.  My soul will be shamed.

Can I live in a place where a President Trump, and those like him who see my life in those terms, control my destiny?  What about my children’s future?  These are the questions that seem to preoccupy my thoughts.   Seems pretty weighty to be sure.

In the meantime, the days blend together in a stream of ‘being’ that has no mileposts.  It all seems to be flowing faster (or slower) with no real apparent conclusion.  The nature of this emergency does not have hard and fast boundaries, only the slow agonizing procession of sickness consuming the most vulnerable.  It’s a kind of limbo, a suspension of animation, you might say.  I want it to end, yet I am not sure I want it to end.   I want the clouds to part and the vista beyond to appear, as I imagine we all do…..

Wonderfully, what seems to be happening is that we as a people are becoming more aware of each other.  This is important for two reasons.  Seeing the courageous actions of our countrymen, feeling the empathy on display by our frontline heroes and essential workers gives all of us hope and belief in the intrinsic goodness of the average American.  So unfortunate that our leaders don't display the same courage and empathy.  And secondly, our awareness of the incompetence of our leaders will forge a new majority of those who want a change of control to help us out of this mess.