Sunday March 15, 2020
Turns out Covid is a bit of a fuck. And means business. Several elderly people in Kirkland die. In response to higher infection rates, the economy begins to crater. People run on grocery stores in the Seattle area. All gatherings, even those under 50 people, are closed to the public. There is a toxic, palpable fear in the air. Covid is playing dirty. People buy and hoard toilet paper. Gun shops sell out.
Okay bucko. You want to play like that? Fine. Let’s play. I’ll meet you there. I’m not going to be scared of you and this isn’t my first rodeo, viral invader not wanted on our green shores. And if that is what this is about, let’s get to it. My brain goes click boom bust, a swing and a punch, I post this to facebook and the fight is on:
A core concern I have about the whole ebola coronavirus thing is how hysteria and idiotic decision-making open a Pandora’s box from which there is no return. The threat no longer is a bad cold but living in an increasingly dystopic state where the most needy are denied services and children no longer have the ability to flourish. When it is taken as a given that “we must do all we can to stop the spread of this virus”…well that opens things up to god knows what. This is the danger. More and more it reminds me of the climate after 9/11 when you could just sense some dumb shit was about to go down. Then, as now, people were hysterical and there was a party line to follow — “we must stop terror”.
It’s been awhile since I’ve thought about 9/11 and the climate of fear and irrationality that permeated life back then, so rather than try to recall it, I thought it would be best to go to the source, to time travel back to that time and remind myself of what it was like, by interviewing, well, myself. I was a senior in college in september 2001, I had four job offers, the economy hadn’t cratered and most of my high school friends who died in Iraq hadn’t joined the army yet. I had also written a scathing opinion piece about the instant patriotism of members of my campus, how it was shallow and self-serving and ultimately dangerous (sucks to be right) and in my youth I had included a line I now find repugnant and deeply regret. Kids!
Me: Hey self, how’s it going?
Self: cool, wow I like the beard.
Me: yeah it’s me, you know you…How are you?
Self: Dude what the fuck is this?
Me: I’m you, I’m from the future, I’ve come back to acquaint myself of the climate and remind myself how dangerous group think hysteria and fear is…
Self: “Acquaint myself”…damn when do I start talking like such a dork?
Me: Bite me.
Self: All right!
Me: Seriously, what’s going on?
Self: People are losing their shit that’s what going on. You have kids buying flags and flying them from their trucks and calling to kill everyone in Afghanistan, you have sikhs getting attacked because they also wear a wrap on their heads, you have all flights, all travel, all of it banned, and word is there is going to be a huge war.
Me: Not just one buddy.
Self: What do you mean? So…wait…let me guess…we go in and surgically take out al qaeda then call a world summit on radical islam, through dialogue and cultural exchange usher in a group enlightenment while using deterrents and necessary force counter violent extremism?
Me: No. Bush drops some bombs for awhile then does a bait and switch and goes into Iraq for reasons I still don’t get, I guess it was because, as he said, “He tried to kill my dad”.
Self: What???
Me: I know, stupid huh?
Self: Retarded.
Me: You can’t say that.
Self: Well it is! I can’t believe that happens. Do people go along with it?
Me: Oh yeah. Who was going to stand up and say no this is idiotic when there was a vague threat of wmds and all of the experts and talking heads said it was serious. “What…don’t you care about the safety and security and America?” People were scared and they wanted security and they hated most those that made things more complicated and more nuanced. Reason and logic disappeared as we all became willing dupes and strode down a moronic path from which there was no return.
Self: That sounds horrible.
Me: Yeah it was. It is. People are still dying in Iraq, al qaeda birthed isis, many Iraqi civilians and Americans died, and all of those instant patriots when it was most convenient for their own mental health changed their minds.
Self: What a bunch of pussies.
Me: You can’t say that.
Self: So…what…why are you here, is it because of that? Because of the war? What is there like massive dislocation? Are people huddling in burned out buildings and stuff did you come back like John Connor to tell me what to do (we’re not going to have sex are we like Sarah and John)…is this like Back to the Future?
Me: No. And I used a Terminator reference yesterday.
Self: yeah you did!
We high five.
Me: No. I am here because I wanted to remind myself, entrench myself for a few moments in 2001 before things really turned, breathe in the hysteria and feel the fear and imagine what might have been. We’re at a time with our own hysteria where things could still turn. I guess I just feel like I’ve seen this story before and care about my kid.
Self: Oh shit…You have a kid? Fuck…did you mean to?
Me: (sighing, then choosing to ignore my self) I guess I hope we might be able to calm the fuck down before it gets really…
Self: Retarded?
Me: You can’t say that.
Self: So what is it?
Me: The kid? She’s a girl.
Self: No…what is it that is doing it?
Me: Oh you mean the cause?
Self: yeah.
Me: It’s a bad cold.
Self: What?!
Me: yeah, a bad cold. Taken at its worst it kills 3-4 percent of the population, mainly older people or those with pre-existing conditions. For 80-90 percent of the population it is nothing but a cold, maybe the flu. But for that the city of Seattle, all of Washington state, and now the country… has completely shut down. You have industries threatening to go belly up, we’re risking another recession similar to 2008 and 2001, kids out of school with their education derailed, poor kids without school lunch programs, nobody at home in working class families to care for them…you have a situation absolutely ripe for real tragedy, and meanwhile kids are playing on playgrounds, staying at home with their grandparents and in the end, even though I deeply question the threat, I am even more skeptical that any of the measures will be very successful, even the purveyors of this plan admit the disease will still spread, and as these measures come at such a severe cost I really wonder about the point of any of it, other than to be scared and act out of fear because…well fuck if I know.
Self: What a bunch of pussies.
Me: You can’t say that.
Self: Well I just did.
Me: Okay but just between us.
Self: Fuck that shit just between us…
Me: Look it’s complicated.
Self: Fuck complicated.
Me: I like you man you’re cool you’re good you know that…
Self: Fucking a.
Me: Hey, I’m gonna go…my wife, your girlfriend, probably’ll wonder where I am…So hey try to enjoy the ride huh?
Self: Shut up old fart.
So there you have it. Upon my return I wish I could say I felt more at ease, but I don’t. Being back in 2001, seeing how much hadn’t been lost yet, it only makes me that much more certain that we don’t have to tread down idiotic roads and shouldn’t. A sucky event is one thing. It sucks there is a new virus amongst us. A sucky response is something entirely different: We don’t just lose out on a better path, we lose out on the opportunity to confront fear, deal with it, and become better versions of ourselves.
How different would things be in the middle east if we knew what we knew now? It’s not impossible to live and think with clarity, even if you don’t have a time machine and can’t go talk to yourself back in the day. All it requires is saying fuck it to the fear, and to those who promulgate it, to think and act while aligning your values to the highest good. For me, that is the next generation: the world they will inherit, the lessons they learn now on a daily basis that will shape their ability to imagine just what the world could be, the obliteration of threats from pussies who would fuck up their chance for a good life.
I believe that every time a human being says no, I’m not going to be afraid, I am going to live and act in accordance to my highest values, my goals, my soul, my dreams — they grow a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser, a little bit more powerful, and a little less malleable, weak, and reactionary. To become better–good enough to face the threats around us without wigging the fuck out–that seems to be the challenge of our time period, what this life is demanding of us, and in my experience revisiting my old self today (He was okay…) the task is worth the effort.
So, just to follow this device to its end…Twenty years from now, what would myself then come back and say to me now? What would a measured, healthy, wise response look like from old fart me looking back on things now? It would start with people quitting the political backbiting for one thing. Jesus Christ shut the fuck up. Schools would re-open and professional educators who know their kids and their environment would be entrusted to do the jobs they are trained for, live for, and are best suited to perform. The most important members of our civilization…and the most vulnerable…kids…would be all right. Money would be spent to support the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Investment would be made not into rebuilding or reshaping economies destroyed but in ventilators, health care, and training. Life would go on. We’d adapt. We’d live. We’d screw and laugh and drink and get to know one another instead of hiding in our homes wearing masks and/or blue buckets with glued down drones on top because life is fatal and we might catch a cold.
Yeah, and while I’m dreaming, my old self from twenty years from now would go back to 2001 and straighten out Bush too…why the hell not? Let’s do this thing.
Odds are my old self twenty years from now could instead show up and say, hey Brandon, it’s time to do the John Connor. Bend over Sarah. And after ignoring me when I say this is the third reference, I’d ask myself why do I get to be Sarah? And old me would say…because my knees ache from all the bullshit you pulled you dumb son of a bitch. And then I’d cough on myself and give myself covid-24 and that would be the end of all things.
So either way, I guess the moral of the story is until covid 24 shows up and I play Sarah with my old self, things are fine. Cool.
I think my younger self would like this ending. Yep. Old habits die hard. Especially good ones.
Paging Vonnegut!