I have been down for awhile, battling COVID. I am double-vaccinated, boosted, am really good about masking and err as often as possible to the side of caution, but I got it anyway and it sucks. I have been a strong proponent of vaccinations and masking, have been really impatient and angry at people listening to so much misinformation, but now I am a crusader. No one wants this. I could say my case is relatively mild, but I feel awful and am struggling to bounce back. I keep reading about more and more people intentionally exposing themselves to this (and marvel at the number who die or come close to it) and I cannot conceive the level of ignorance and idiocy it takes at this point in time to oppose any and all precautions and preventions to this terrible virus.

Before, I wanted to allow for individual rights to make decisions as long as they did not endanger others. I’m taking that back. This is not about individual rights versus the common good. There is only the common good. Putting ones own health at risk is stupid to begin with, but this has almost unlimited potential to harm others. It should be against the law to intentionally endanger any other human being. Selfish stupidity is widespread and human, but just because it is normal for so many does not mean it should be affirmed and allowed. This isn’t politics, this isn’t religion, this is human decency and a demarcation between narcissism and morality. We should no longer be concerned about infecting our children, our elderly, our vulnerable and immuno-compromised. This should no longer be a reality. The care for one another should be our defining value.

Does this put us under undo stresses, strains, and threats? Yes. The mental health of our children and youth must be addressed in significant and meaningful ways. Warring over whether schools should be open or not is addressing a symptom, not the root problem. We are crystal clear at this point: our modern U.S. society was in no way prepared for a threat to the common good. Our hostile, angry, self-centered, entitlement mentality driven culture makes “looking out for number one” our guiding value. So we continue to do unnecessary and indefensible harm to one another. And we allow the petty, insipid, irrelevant game-playing of politics to continue to manipulate and brainwash us. Were we truly a populist culture not wanting poor government to threaten our way of life, we would call “bullshit” on all the melodrama and exploitative control being toyed with by our elected leaders. We are living in a soap opera that we are not smart enough to recognize.

There is not a Republican COVID and a Democrat COVID, and masking is not partisan, nor is vaccination. From the uneducated who buy into ridiculous conspiracies to the so highly-educated ignoramuses’ who deny the science, we are finding creative ways to inflict pointless harm and death on ourselves. Are we really so ignorant and self-absorbed?

Nobody can tell me what to do. Is this a residual tantrum from childhood that defiantly stamps its foot and says, “just wait until I’m an adult. Then I can do whatever I want!” It seems our intellectual and emotional age in the United States is stuck at a petulant four-year-old bully level.

Don’t spread this virus. Take every caution and precaution. Err to the side of care and concern, safety and wellness for all. Grow up; this isn’t all about you. It is about us, and it is about doing more than surviving a terrible pandemic. It is about becoming a true national community that finds its strength in unity, collaboration, respect, and compassion. COVID is not a joke, not a talking point, not a political debate, not a religious conviction. COVID is an enemy common to all human beings on earth and the time has come for us to rise up together and make it go away.

Thanks. I’m going back to bed.