Hey! Where do you think you are going?
Go back! I said go back or I make you!
You almost touched me! How dare you?
I don’t know where you’ve been
I don’t know what you’ve done
If you come closer, I’ll have no choice
But to kill you before you kill me!
The world continues to stir after the scare of COVID 19. Right now, it is still not clear which way it is steering as many remain under the frightening grip of fear. A friend visited Home Depot and was harassed by someone who claims my friend almost touched them. I watched a woman abused for going the wrong lane in a grocery store. People who have been hoping for opportunities to get out since the lock down and are having their wishes gradually granted and are subtly losing their minds. The general expectation is that having been isolated for so long, we will reemerge different: more empathetic toward others but no. The opposite is the result. People are so afraid and angry they will bash anyone who appears a threat, irrespective of if this threat is real or imagined. Fear is turning humans to aliens who have no sympathy for others: this is scary!
Opinions are varied, strong and unshifting. Many people want the world to remain in lockdown until an ‘All-clear’ sign’ confirms the horrible virus has been arrested and eliminated or a vaccine is in place to shore up protection. No, they don’t want to stay home alone: they want everyone to stay home until then. Even if it takes months to develop the vaccine, even if others may not want to take the vaccine. They believe everyone should be made to take the vaccine irrespective of their individual choices. Why? Because those who don’t take it could infect those who do. Therefore, the rights of those who don’t want to take it must be taken away to satisfy those who do not want to die.
Many are concerned that lives are being ruined more by the inability of bread winners to meet the needs of their families. They would rather be dead out there trying their best than live at home, doing nothing but watching their loved ones suffer impoverishment. It is excruciation to imagine the hopelessness facing families who have lost means of livelihood and are afraid of losing everything. It is agonizing that a situation that should appeal to our human nature is rather bringing out the worst in us. In the media and on social platforms, many are chanting, “We are all in this together,” but real-life attitudes are far from understanding, far from empathetic, and very far from the unity we thought would be the end result of this unexpected isolation.
I am not here to condemn or justify any side even though everyone is entitled to their opinion and human rights must be respected through all we do. I am here rather to poke our consciences and ask pertinent questions whose answers I had thought that the lifting of the restrictions will answer for us all: What has COVID 19 done to you? On which side are you? How are you reacting to others? How are you treating those you meet? Are you responding from the place of love and kindness or is fear turning you into a hater? Is this really the handwork of COVID or is the beast in men, being exposed by the stresses of isolation? Is your reaction a true representative of who you are or do you need to think more before you speak and act?
(To be continued June 26, 2020.)
Glory!