In a way, this year has been the same as 2020, especially in regard to the pandemic. Only, now, in addition to people refusing to wear masks, there are still too many people refusing to get vaccinated, many of whom have also been refusing to wear masks. Do I blame them for prolonging this pandemic? Yes, because if the majority of us had taken the vaccination, we would have reached herd immunity by now, and the virus would not have had the opportunity to develop increasingly contagious and harmful variants. Without sufficient hosts, the virus would not have been able to thrive. The unmasked and the unvaccinated literally fed the virus, kept it alive, and made it stronger.
However, I am no longer angry. In 2021, I have learned to stop engaging in any kind of argument, especially in regard to Trump vs. Biden. To me, the truth of it all has become so obvious, that all I can do is shake my head and say to myself, “Logic has left the building.” I hope it won’t be gone forever, but even if it is, this is the world in which I must learn to live. Of all the challenges of 2021, coping with irrational beliefs and behaviors that risk everyone’s wellbeing has been my greatest challenge, especially when it has affected my loved ones. Anger does not serve me or them. Forgiving acceptance has served me, but not them. Whatever I think or feel doesn’t change anything or anyone, but it does help me to have some peace of mind. Letting go of all expectations has helped me too. Whatever anyone says or does is just “whatever” in my mind. I refuse to allow others’ belligerence to take up any space in my mind.
I have learned to have a detached view, and I have come to accept that too many people are simply not able to cope with the reality of the pandemic, just as they are not able to cope with most of the harsh realities in our world such as global warming, mass shootings, and the fact that unregulated capitalism is at the root of all systemic evil, including racism, sexism, injustice of every kind, wars, the destruction of the planet, and slave labor, which includes the underpaid and overworked. Most of all, they are unable to cope with the possibility that they have been duped by their leaders who are leading them straight off the cliff to their demise.
Ignorance coupled with fear has taken its toll, and those who have preached against masks and vaccinations have been the majority who have died from practicing what they preached. At least I can give them credit for that. As they preached, they themselves did not wear masks or get vaccinated, and they paid the ultimate price. Some of their last words from their death beds were a confession that they had been wrong as they tried to persuade their followers, too late, to get vaccinated. It was too late because they had done such a great job of persuading their followers to demonize masks and vaccinations that they could not undo what they had done. Even Trump, who has yet to pay the ultimate price, is booed by his followers when he now tells them to get vaccinated.
Additionally, the systemic evil of unregulated capitalism has been in control of the message and the “news,” which is artfully loaded with fallacies in logic, pathos, and fear mongering inside a tangled web of intentional complexity designed to confuse the readers and the listeners. Even some of the most educated people among us have fallen prey to these tactics, and there are fewer people every day who can recognize up from down, left from right, or right from wrong. Every time the truth has a chance to emerge, it is trampled and buried alive in a graveyard of lies.
No one can trust anyone any more. All trust has been broken in a society that depends on trust to function. Hence, we are a dysfunctional society, which has become the norm. We cannot trust strangers or friends at his point. We have to be hypervigilant with telemarketers and scammers. Identity theft has skyrocketed because, although no one can trust anyone, many can be persuaded through fear tactics to surrender their better judgement and hand over their social security number and other pertinent personal information on a silver platter to artful scammers.
Fewer and fewer of us have been thinking clearly. We are losing our better judgment to the emotional fog of dysfunction as though there has been a sudden outbreak of dementia, even among the young. Hysteria is highly contagious, and it does not take much to become mass hysteria. In the year 2021, we have seen a great deal of mass hysteria, and it didn’t help that our year began with the insurrection on our nation’s capital led by President Trump, but even that obvious truth has escaped at least 50 percent of Americans who still believe Trump is the elected president, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. But, then, how can we expect anything else when they also believe Trump is God’s appointed leader who can do no wrong, no matter how vulgar and mean-spirited he has been, which makes me wonder, what do they think God is? But, I don’t wonder for long because I refuse to allow their apparent madness to take up space in my mind.
Now, there are the departed loved ones whose lives were taken by COVID19, leaving their surviving family members and friends to face the holidays without them. As of today, 815,000 American lives have been taken by COVID19 in two years. To put this number into perspective, only 6,294 Americans died in the Afghanistan War, the longest war in American history (20 years). Now, with the highly contagious omicron variant, more lives will be lost in 2022, and only God knows if and when this pandemic will be over. Will we ever be able to live mask-free without risking our lives? Even the vaccinated need to be boosted to avoid becoming a “breakthrough” case. As of today, only 20% of Americans have taken a booster vaccine.
If 2020 marked the year of the beginning of soul-searching, 2021 has been soul-crushing, and 2022 will be more of the same, unless, by some miracle, we all come back to our senses and resurrect our better judgement and face the reality that we all need to be vaccinated and wear our masks to put an end to this pandemic. Right now, however, more of us are lost in the maelstrom of lies and fear than ever before.
We need not feel angry or defeated, but we do need to be extra careful, and if we must be among the anti-vaxers, we can still do everything possible to protect ourselves by getting vaccinated, wearing masks, staying at least six feet away from them, and opening our windows for air flow. If we take these precautionary measures, we are very likely to survive the pandemic. I wish I could say the same for our loved ones who are anti-vaxers. Sadly, all we can do is pray for them because if they have not heard our plea to get vaccinated by now, they most likely never will. We may even have to face the possibility that we won’t be able to visit with them again until the pandemic is over, or worse, accept that we may lose them forever. There is always the chance that the last visit we had with our loved ones could have been our last ever, but during a pandemic, our loved ones are in more danger than before. I sometimes struggle to hold back my tears when I say “good-bye” to loved ones who are anti-vaxers. They do not believe they are in danger, so, they don’t feel the weight of the very real possibility that this could be our last visit. They cannot understand my tears, and it would do no good to burden them with my sadness.
My only hope for my loved ones who are more afraid of the vaccine than they are of COVID19 is that by some miracle they will see the light of logic and get vaccinated before it is too late. They have tested my faith the most this year, but I know that faith is all I have left to keep my hope alive. It’s ironic isn’t it? Or, maybe it’s a paradox. Faith and logic can harmoniously co-exist in the same brain, and the expression, “God helps those who help themselves” pretty much sums it up. However, now I pray that God will also help those too fearful or cognitively impaired to be able to help themselves, while the rest us work with God and medical science to continue to protect ourselves.
I pray for all of us that we will find joy in 2022, despite the challenges and obstacles. May our new year be filled with moments of joy, love, and beauty, and may these moments reassure us that life is still good, no matter what. If nothing else, perhaps we are on our way to appreciating these moments more than ever before, and we will be more grateful just to be alive.
Happy New Year to all!
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