It's taken me a long time to write this post for two reasons. The first is that I wanted to wait until I had calmed down enough that I didn't overtly call anyone an imbecile on social media. The second is because, quite frankly, I'm not sure that I know the answers. To anything.
I've been struggling with the increasingly rampant levels of general stupidity floating around at the moment. More than a few times, I've had to exercise momentous self-control and delete my comments below more and more outlandish and ridiculous COVID-related videos or Facebook posts before posting them, for fear of being banned by Facebook forever. Or losing friends (real ones, not Facebook ones). In fact, I even went off social media for about an hour one day because I thought it may be fueling my growing disgust with humanity (I ended up disgusted with myself instead because I couldn't manage an hour without checking social media; need to tackle that addiction when things are eventually back to normal). Because I have pretty much used up all my self-control reserves for the next five decades:
COVID does exist. Really. It does.
It is highly unlikely that politicians from all over the world, who cannot agree on anything at all, would suddenly all work together subversively to create a worldwide hoax to downgrade the world economy by 5%. We do not exist in a Mission Impossible movie.
Bill Gates is probably one of the most philanthropic and generous human beings ever to have lived. Just shows you where kindness gets you.
Vaccination is arguably the public health intervention that has saved more lives than any other public health intervention. It may well be the only reason that you are alive today.
Physical distancing has an effect on the transmission rate of the very real novel coronavirus. Seriously, just keep your distance.
And those are just today's bugbears.
Sometime during the past week I saw a picture of a group of friends of mine who had got together one afternoon to have their nails done. The photo was of a group of beautiful, smiling women huddled together with glasses of wine in their hands, showing off their newly painted feet. Pre-COVID this would have been a perfectly normal picture and probably would have engendered feelings of joy and happiness in me-perhaps a bit of jealousy too, since I was working while they were getting their nails done- but on the whole, it would have brought a smile to my face and I would have carried on with my afternoon. Instead, I saw the photo and jumped straight onto my moral hobby-horse. How could you possibly think this is right? There is no social distancing going on! No one is even wearing a mask. Boy, did my fingers fly over my phone screen. This was my verbatim response:
I know that I sound like such a party pooper, but you guys get to choose whether you get exposed or not. I don't. I know you all think you'll be fine if you get it, and you probably will, but someone's mother or father or maid may not. Seriously, is it so important to get your nails done? I have a close friend who works in ICU in CT and the stories she is telling me are horrific. Makes no sense to expose yourself (and by default other potentially vulnerable people, like your maids etc) unnecessarily. I sound grumpy because I am, because if the shit hits the fan I'm the one who will have to go and work shifts in over-run casualties and put myself, my husband and my kids at risk while you get to sit at home. Not cool.
And that was the toned-down, very mild, fifth draft. I held the moral high ground for a few hours until I started feeling really mean and judgmental.
This past week hasn't been my best week ever and when I try and work out why, I think it's because I've spent a lot of the time being mean and judgmental about people's behavioural choices and about their IQ's. Basically, I've been a self-righteous bitch.
I composed this blog post so many times in my head, during the course of many early-morning runs. My tone ranged from scathing sarcasm to sanctimonious preaching. But something happened over those cold, beautiful, sunrise kilometres. I started questioning my response. Anger is not my default emotion, and I realised that something must be triggering the rage I was feeling. It took me close on 40 km to unravel what it was: the reason I was feeling angry was because of my own insecurity. The truth is that I don't know what the right answer is. I don't know whether social distancing is necessary or whether it can just be sidelined; I don't know what the future of this pandemic is going to look like; I don't know whether Ballito is going to follow the same tragic and disastrous path that the Western Cape has followed or whether we are somehow immune to it. I just don't know. I was jealous of those girls in the photo, but not because I was working while they were having fun. I was jealous of their certainty in what they were doing and, to some degree, of their ignorance of the ramifications of their actions.
All of the nonsensical and ridiculous theories that people are sharing so confidently on social media are perhaps in reality a symptom of their uncertainty. It is so much easier to believe that this virus is the result of evil manipulation than random genetic mutation. Its also easier to have something, anything, to believe than to grasp at the unknown, trying to create form and sense from a changing and nebulous entity. I think that people are clinging onto theories in the same way that, as children, we cling to our security blankets. Better the devil we know than the one we don't.
I am still drowning in uncertainty, but I am able now to meet it with a degree of equanimity. I have no idea what the answers are. I am not sure that anyone does. Until there is more knowledge available about the virus, I have decided to act in a way that protects the most vulnerable in our community. At the moment that is the only certainty I can find to guide my actions and my decisions. I think that each person needs to find their own certainty that can act as a personal compass for them through the stormy strait that is COVID. There is no room to judge other's choices or behaviour; there is only ever room for compassion. Even in the face of remarkable stupidity.