Here I am with yet another excuse article on why I did not publish anything for about a year due to my endless successful procrastination. Since March I am telling myself: “You have other priorities now, take care of your mental health and go back to writing once things go back to normal”. Too long has taken me to realize or better said, to accept, that normal will not be any longer as it was before 2020. Hitherto, my writing was always about ventilating thoughts and calibrating my emotions by putting them in words. Therefore, I write my first COVID-19 related article (something I swore I will never do).
No need to offer a definition on COVID-19 as it is already more infamous than Mr. Trump, fully eclipsing him until recently. All you could possibly see in media for a year now is related to these two parasites: corona virus class and human beings upper-class. Mr. Trump has successfully demonstrated how little we common humans have to say in decisions that affect all somehow equally, for example: on climate regulations, implementation of new technologies meant to support our current existence or simply decide on how to pursue your life within a system – a system that unfortunately benefits some while hindering others. Furthermore, the global pandemic situation has also demonstrated that common people have nothing to say but obey. Okey, you can choose to be a rebel and not do what is ask from you – however, if you have a sense of solidarity or social morals you might prefer obeying while quietly disagreeing.
It has been proven in the past that governors are bound to fail at some moments in time. This is not due to their inability to lead, but because their vision does not fit with the vision of the general public. In a false acclaimed democratic society, we are nothing but followers, we have no full right of anything without compromises or conditions. There is a system that must be followed, there is endless cumbersome bureaucracy which easily and heavily affects people that do not understand it. We follow rules which are created by a political cabinet of well-educated and influential people. Most elite public figures are well-educated, probably they pertain to old money families and they have a tunnel vision loyal to their party of representation. These people are having a hell of a job these days with regulating COVID-19 topic and interestingly enough, they have made this a war-like situation by forcing us to stay indoors and applying the social distance concept while symbolically wearing surgical masks which do have a small contribution on not spreading the virus. Other desperate measures out of desperation implemented have helped us and the planet more on rather recovering from lung diseases, here I am thinking at limiting air and ground traffic, suspension of manufacturing operations, and other pollution generating activities being forced into deferral.
To put it in perspective, every year 4.2 million people die due to exposure to ambient pollution (WHO International, 2021). This issue has never been so brutally and aggressively brought to the general public through mass media communication. It is true that we constantly speak about our global concerns derived from us vandalizing Earth’s natural resources for our own benefit – if only could at least everyone benefit equally. But no, unfortunately when Greta Thunberg further raised concerns alongside her generation as ally, the ones supposed to live longer than the ruling fossils currently in power, she received no serious attention from world leaders like Ser Putin or Mr. Trump. In fact, they argued she is too young to comprehend how the world works and she should not bother with fronting issues on adults’ affairs (Business Insider, 2019). I do not believe Greta does not understand how the world works, on the contrary – Greta and the young generations understand that their world, their life, and their freedom is taken away from them by avaricious specimens backed with ill-formatted approaches. Still wondering nowadays in 2021: why did not global warming, air pollution and other human made catastrophes never enjoyed the same media coverage nor did it prompt such a state of emergency globally as COV-19 does with its 2 million deaths and counting (Worldometers, 2021).
A death from any cause is still a death.
It is terrible knowing that so many people die nowadays from a virus alone, without considering the people that die of other serious diseases due to stricter regulations on entering hospitals. There are new procedures in place everywhere which do not benefit anyone, conversely these rules bring disturbances in most business and public practices bound to escalate into the collapse of systems and humans alike. Worth mentioning those humans that are technically healthy, but their minds are going so berserk that sooner or later they will be psychiatric patients or just delinquents, or maybe they will start a terror cult just out of boredom and pick the system as their nemesis – but of course, in civilized societies, these types of things do not happen as you are probably traced down in no time. The system has flaws though: recording and reporting sometimes can be manipulated, so the actual situation could be better or worse. Hearing stories from people who had lost loved ones in different types of accidents as stroke, infarct, or car accidents to name some, nevertheless they received the death certificate with COV-19 written on it as cause of death. The rationale is that they were tested after death for certainty to whether they were infected prior to the accident. As a result, the cadavers were deposited in plastic bags and passed onto their family members for burial. In corrupted countries from the European Union, it is common practice to have false declarations to collect some additional funds from the EU. How can it be believable that those numbers of COVID-death are accurate? We could not know cause only God knows. Still, terrifying stories some people have in relation to how the inability of people to deal with these unpredictable dynamics can affect everyone collectively.
Everyone suffers collectively nowadays as there is no single soul to enjoy almost complete isolation given the social nature of human beings. It is most likely that your life has been heavily affected by the current global instabilities, whether that is due to viruses or social injustices as racist or ageism. Periods of crisis are also great moments for opportunities and in the business world most humans are apt at sleazing opportunities. The greater the challenge, the greater the reward – why would you not take advantage of the situation? Nobody has told you it is immoral to take advantage when opportunities arise, on the contrary, if you find something that benefits you go for it. This should be instinctual and pertain to the rules of the jungle, this false jungle we nurture with our poor and downdated systems. In society we have roles, and everyone is trying their best to contribute to the greater good – or is this really the case? I see the doctors as true saviours and soldiers as servants for destructions, I see teachers as the builders of our future and politicians as savage businessmen. It is all about the role you have and how you choose to honour it. Choices and options are key in building a more unified society where less fortune ones can benefit of equity and the weak ones are protected within their consent. We tend to believe we know what is better for others, but many times we fail at this as we barely understand what it is best for our unique and complex self. Choices made to save the world, save the sick and the old, but did they specifically ask anyone for salvation or was that a choice out of pathetic political correctness? I would say the priority should be on the future and not that much on the past anymore. So, it breaks my heart when I think of the potential psychological damages the young might develop while trying to save older and sick people against their will as they might wish more for death than life given the current trend and direction of human evolution. Instead of focusing on short term solutions that fulfil the requirements of a political campaign message and satisfy the fetish to increase life expectancy, why not focusing on other catastrophic issues that might contribute to an increase of the life expectancy for everyone and the generations to come. To be observed that if humans do not take a radical turnaround with their destructive capitalistic activities, our children’s life expectancy would be lower than ours.
“I feel monotony and death to be almost the same”. Charlotte Brontë
We all want to live longer, live better, healthier, feel abundance, loved, be comfortable and happy. The state of blissfulness rarely could you find it in the concrete jungle which is disallowing Earth to give birth to its children – any other living organism including humans which are by far some of the most aggressive predators on this planet. The calmness and sense of oneness you can experience when you disconnect from your expectations from the world, when you accept your role of just another organism that is seeking its haemostasis and should blend symbiotically with everything else around. Instead, we destroy pieces of Earth to extract minerals, we force animals into reproduction so that we can eat them, we promote mass consumption so that rich gets richer and poor gets poorer. We have still ongoing discussion of equality and it is in almost everyone’s benefit to calibrate the spectrum of equality by eliminating the concept of different human races as well as snubbing the idea that some cultures, traditions, or methods are superior to others – they might be, but in the end we all die and go back into Earth whether buried or incinerated. We should not allow people to feel entitled unless all people are entitled to what they wish, but this would kill the meaning of the word itself. We should not allow people to feel miserable and mistreated, decriminalised and turn into victims. Would this be so difficult? It is highly idealistic and it goes beyond utopia, yet if we do not fix our basic existence by acknowledging that we are all born equally and every voice equally should matter, we won’t live in peace and societies will always struggle toning down the protesters. It is true that we are not raised up in a similarly providing environment, it is also true that each one of us has their own destiny with unique path, hence we shall support one another and strive to unite instead of dividing one another.
The system and its archangels: the media, politicians, lawyers, landlords, civil servants – they all reinforce what is good for you denying your true freedom. True freedom cannot be accomplished that easily because it would imply that you get rid of all the rules, morals and standards imposed by other before you even came into existence – basically leave behind the herd mentality to echo Nietzsche’s existentialism philosophy. Unfortunately, we are not feeling supremely comfortable to raise our voices, speak our minds freely without fearing consequences for what is said and how it is perceived. We have embedded in our behavioural mechanisms what the system and society expect from us and that is to follow, obey, consume, be the perfect canvas painted with society’s brushed. You are a beautiful canvas that can be filled with your unique colours, shades, flaws and expressions, since being expected to reach something you never asked for can be heart breaking and mental damaging. Other mental damaging factors besides the pressure from the society are also social media and its glamourous false contented endorsers, meritocracy and capitalism because you are evaluated based on your production, performance and prospect rather than how you achieved all that. As long as the system’s archangels have something to gain more in the shape of interest, taxes and other financial instruments, we function properly in their exposed opinion. What makes the money machine and the system function is solutions to invented problems, problems we are spammed through mass media communication every day, everywhere. The optimism here remains in the hope that some archangels might really be angels, but as said previously: true freedom of speech does not exist without paying the consequences for instigating doubt across the general public with controversial ideas. The system’s archangels will always know how to direct and guide you on the right path if it is in their use too.
“In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.” Friedrich Nietzsche
The system becomes credible thanks to its cleverly selected information to cascade to the public. Think about marketing within companies, you create the best story possible by emphasising on the good aspects and omitting the less good aspects to the point of thinking that you really need and want whatever it is promoted since, you think, it would improve your mere existence. Governments on the other hand, use reverse psychology, they stress on what does not work so that its citizens think they need them to bring order to the chaos, a chaos we created in the first place. Isn’t it ironic how no matter how hard you try; things do not seem to get better but worse? We are monitored nowadays more than ever, your data is probably spread throughout the whole planet and analysed in data centres to help companies and politicians develop their promotional campaigns. There are cameras everywhere, socially exposed, followed willingly and unwillingly – no wonder people these days suffer of paranoia, anxiety and panic attacks more than ever and not to mention the cases of depression. One would say, we also have more advanced instruments to better quantify these statistics based on acquired data from institutions meant to safeguard us. But again, it is a choice, a choice coming from the echelon on what a citizen should be exposed to in terms of news. If COVID-19 would not have been publicized as a more severe type of seasonal flu with more likability of getting infected and tougher symptoms, maybe more than half of the global population would not even know what that is. Video game or something?
Opinions across the world are spread on whether we need all these extremities on this virus. The more we go ahead the more statistics showcase how inefficient some interventions have been so far, like wearing masks. We have other more serious issues in relation to diseases the doctors are fighting to find a cure, like cancers, hearth diseases and multiple mental related diseases. Now that this novel seasonal flu COVID-19 is taking all the medical attention we have everything else nearly on hold as we cannot fully commit on anything anymore. One of the most important human being in my life is living with implantable ports in her chest for over a year because the hospitals cannot receive her to extract those tubes that do not serve anymore as she decided not to take the chemotherapy anymore. She is a cancer patient with sarcoma metastasis which is eating her bones and tumors growing on the tissues which cover her vital organs. There is no cure available for this type of cancer as it is not as researched as much due to low percentage of the global population having it, thus there are not so many research subsidies allocated. Doctors (in Italy at least) are still using a heavy chemical composition with some chemicals being efficient and others not, but they do not know which ones help or not – this treatment created and not updated since the 80s as per oncologist’s pronouncement. The healthcare is not bad, doctors are really doing their utmost with what they have at their disposal, but the healthcare system is the one not focusing appropriately as they go on quantity and not quality whilst having low capacity, hence why COVID-19 regulations are vital: Hospitals do not have capacity to treat large amounts of infected people at once, thus they need to prevent humans from getting too many infections instantaneously. This of course ignores the needs of other type of patients’ needs and treatments by bringing disturbances into their recovery programs, such as cancer patients and mental patients. Besides, more and more people are getting ill with psychosomatic tendencies due to perpetual uncertainties of what is happening or going to happen in the nearby future, suicidal rates increase, children miss on getting proper education, social people suffer of loneliness and less social people learn to appreciate the art of socializing. Is all this really worth it? Is it worth having our people struggling due to terrible political governance which is gradually converting societies into police states where authorities can charge you for being outdoors, not covering your mouth and nose or simply for being surrounded by more than a predefined number of people?
To wrap up all above-mentioned, COVID-19 feels like a theatre play to hide or postpone other urgent global affairs. The problem is not necessarily with the doctors and the medical capabilities we currently enjoy nowadays as opposed to how we were during the Spanish flu pandemic between 1918-1920 which accumulated about 50 million deaths out of less than 2 billion global population at that time. The issue is with the policy making lobbies which consider this a high priority with severe and strict measurements while ignoring the real issues continuously unfolding throughout the world, famine and lack of drinkable water in Africa, ethical discrimination, global warming, child abusing and basic human rights in some countries. The system needs to change, needs an amendment that empowers people and offer customised solutions. In terms of medical approaches and choice of living and survival, we should arbitrate our own choices in an accountable way – establish measures and take extra care of the vulnerable ones, but please let the rest enjoy their youth, make mistakes, give them a chance to learn and grow. Frankly, live and let die if the time has come; as so far it is not so convincing the situation is as bad as they want us to believe, but rather a show to create fear, weaken the spirit and mind of human beings and give birth to further issues on top of the problems at hand. The solution is not clear and will not be clear since messages are not transparently communicated. The hope now is in the generations that have the energy and power to make a change because most people feel powerless against the system as they are too deeply indoctrinated and it takes too little to make them believe and obey everything. To be clear, empathy and compassion for everyone equally is required within societies and all problems should be tackled accordingly.
Killing Oblivion 