It didn't have to be this bad

The real pandemic is American selfishness.

Washington Post March 4, 2021

It didn’t have to be this bad because we had many, many days where thousands of people died, when medical personnel were on television -- looking shell-shocked -- begging people to be responsible, while Dr. Fauci and Dr. Gupta were pleading with Americans for months on end to please, please, please, stay home, mask up, and social distance -- if not for yourself, then for others.

It didn’t have to be this bad but a lot of people just couldn’t stay put or follow amazingly simple guidelines to keep the nation as safe as possible until a vaccine could be developed.

It didn’t have to be this bad but it was … because too many people just had to have non-urgent family visits. Or they had to breathe "free." Or they were bored. Or they had to go to a rally, or a football game. They had to get to a warmer climate. They had to have fun. Or have their kids visit. Or relax. Or whatever.

It pisses me off.

Because 500,000+ people are dead and it didn’t have to be this way.

And those half-million-plus people who are dead? They got dead through spread — which we knew about and which we knew how to prevent. It was all fact.

But that fact never made more than a minor dent in Americans' relentless, self-serving solipsism.

As recently as a February 14 report, the CDC has said that travel is still not recommended — even for people who have been vaccinated — because of the threat that they can spread the disease: “Traveling is one of the fastest ways to spread the coronavirus, experts say, and  it's unknown whether the COVID-19 vaccines protect against transmission.”

On March 1, the CDC issued a warning of a possible fourth surge of cases coming in hard and hot before we can get the country vaccinated at sufficient stop-surge levels. A couple of days ago, CNN reported that we're still having 60-70,000 new infections every day.

And yet … the number of people I know who are leisure-traveling is growing, not diminishing. "It's time to get back to normal," people are saying.

Ah, let’s be sure to put that as an epitaph on the gravestones of the additional 34,000 people predicted to die by March 27 — that’s three short weeks from now.

It's astonishing: As a nation, a majority of us didn't really bat an eyelash before deciding to prioritize -- to value -- our individual wants over valuing the collective life or death of our countrymen.  The young mother who died last month, just after giving birth. The grandparents. The newborn last September. The husbands, wives.  The lonely and unloved. The famous. The anonymous. 

“The proportion of people doing things to prevent the virus from spreading just plummeted between April and October.” — NPR Dec. 1, 2020

Gee, I wonder how much further that proportion has plummetted now that vaccines are rolling out?

It’s astounding to me how many people were and still are willing to risks the lives of others just so they can “keep living” the life they think they’re entitled to.

Smithsonian Mag Feb 13, 2021

Henry David Thoreau focused much of his writing on the concept of living with principle, with our entire being; never leaving the fulfillment of principle to chance, or the whim of a majority.

But that's precisely what we've done as a nation: left the solving of this massive problem to "someone else."  Denying our own responsibility and disengaging from our own culpability for the half-million people already dead.

We see delusional thinking play out in politics every day on all manner of topics and we wring our hands and deplore the “crazies” who show indifference to facts and human suffering.  And then we go right out and do it ourselves.

Kind of reminds me of all those politicians (and others) who say, “Well, yes, I was at Trump's rally on January 6, but I wasn't involved with the insurrection.”

That will probably be what people say when the pandemic is over too: “Well, yes, I was one of the ones who didn't think the CDC guidelines applied to me, but I wasn't involved in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Our country has been spiraling down a vortex of out-of-control selfishness since World War II ended.  Before Covid-19 struck, it -- this decades-long pandemic of selfishness -- just wasn’t so frickin’ obvious. People came and went and did their thing, and yeah, of course, every now and then our collective self-absorption would get annoying.

Brief moments in history, like 9.11, were opportunities to jump-start the failing engine of American "togetherness," but even that tragedy couldn't disrupt the trajectory of the contagion of self-centeredness that has devolved into the "Every man for himself" culture we've got today (vaccines for donors' communities? 'nuff said).

Just look at how Mitch McConnell has whiplashed on the Trump issue.  All he needs for his decision-making is a wet finger and a blowing wind because all he cares about is his own agenda. But honestly? There’s a little bit (in some cases a lot) of McConnell in pretty much every American these days.

Look, obviously, I love my country.  And I love a lot of the people in it.

What I don’t love is how I let them — and myself and my country — down by not speaking up about, oh, 400,000 deaths ago.   Instead I kept silent and as always, that makes me complicit -- responsible. I prioritized relationships and income over the inherent responsibility -- the duty -- I had to speak up directly to people in my sphere.  Not to accuse or criticize but to engage in at least a dialogue -- a real one, an honest one. Instead, I’ve cheerfully chirped, “Have a great trip!” “Enjoy!” When inside I was screaming this question “Are they delusional or do they just not give a shit?”

If you've made it this far into this essay, you obviously know how to read.  And, you're likely educated. Somewhere along the line you've studied topics of justice, inequality, logic, statistical probability, ethics, and hopefully read at least a few of the great books written by great minds who tried to teach us that, above all else, what matters is love.

Not love of self.  But love for others.

But if you deny that truth — that you learned during your education or perhaps by going to church —by refusing to act in ways that manifest that truth ... you'll never break the shackles of self-interest. You'll never live up to that education. You’ll never become what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “a great soul”: an individual who had the strength to not just think about — but to live what they’d learned through vital action.

How many of us do that?

If only all that book learnin’ and Bible thumpin’ we’ve done in this country actually made a difference on how we act.

Maybe you're telling yourself it doesn't matter now.  Other people have been grinding it out to create vaccines, putting their lives on the lines, working monstrous, soul-crushing hours tending to and holding the hands of people dying horrible deaths.  And, now, finally, some solutions -- and maybe even an end -- are in sight.

But the experts and the scientists are still asking you to stay home, not travel, gather only in small groups and even then socially distanced, wear masks except with people you live with — even if you’ve been vaccinated, and approach every interaction with others as a potential for spread.

What are you going to do?