I dont know about you but this isolation period in all of our lives at once has really deeply affected me. I didnt think it would really. But lo, it has.
I think hourly on things like who am I, what matters, why are people so foolish, what will we be moving forward from this, are other people as deeply affected as I am, what are they thinking, is it hurting us, is it making us better, what about the loss, where is the mourning, why isnt it public, i am upset by this, i am in mourning, i am not even worried anymore, encouragement? hope? what about loss? has anyone addressed this loss, folks its friggin deep.
Those of us who are stuck at home are avoiding the underlying feeling that the world is ending by watching a steady stream of netflixhuluprime and making beercheesecrochetpaintings... but I find myself crying over a myriad of newly sentimental things like rock concert videos and driving past the pizza parlor and hearing an editorial on NPR about how parents should let themselves off the hook for failing at being their childs teacher assistant and managing remote learning. and then theres the obvious thing were all trying to avoid, the government. what a bag of dicks. Its devastating. On so many levels, we are all going through an intense period of loss.
Put in perspective, our supermarkets diminished supply is nothing like post world war II Russia. Its nothing like the great depression. Our death toll, even the worlds death toll is not(yet) anything even remotely close to the death toll from starvation and malnutrition every year...
FYI, that is this number: 9,000,000.
And even after all this, our displaced persons number in the US will be an atrocity, but it will never come close to the number of displaced people currently living in camps worldwide...
That number is this: 70,000,000.
So, if you read this, you are probably not suffering. But on some level we are all suffering. Because if the above numbers exist, then the world is suffering and by extention so are we. But this steady stream of stuff stands in the way of us seeing or knowing that others are suffering, and we are content not knowing and not having to feel that ongoing loss.
Please let just one minute of this loss filter through to your consciousness. I swear to you, you will live through it. But you will also change. And that change needs to happen on a gigantic scale pretty damn soon, or we are absolutely doomed to see all the numbers increase.
Netflix can not save us from the catastrophic failure of our hearts to acknowledge our grief.
