Before you go nuts, let me clarify that I’m referring to the old-and-sick. If you’re elderly with “underlying health conditions”, maybe your time is up. Maybe we weren’t meant to live lives extended by pharmaceuticals and pacemakers and stents. The planet can only bear so many people, remember?
I thinks it’s amazing to see normal healthy people hoarding toilet paper and going around wearing masks. If they would read the statistics, they would see how little their actual risk is. Being sick is awful, of course, but a virus that threatens the health of the elderly is not going to fuck you up if you’re outside this group. If you have a compromised immune system, you probably already practice safety measures in your everyday life.
Humans are so tenacious of life, it strikes me as poignant all the time. I have a friend in his 60s who goes around freaking out about an oil refinery a few miles away from his community. He’s afraid it will explode or be targeted by terrorists. I mean, those are real possibilities but what makes him worry about it so continuously? I’ve exclaimed to him more than once, “You really love life, don’t you!”
To constantly be aware of what catastrophes might befall you is to be absent from your immediate experience. How can you drive anywhere when the car coming toward you could smash into you at any moment? When you go to a movie, a fire might break out, or a guy in a batman outfit could burst in with an assault rifle. When you eat a chicken wing or a hotdog, you’re just minutes away from choking to death.
Real threats should be avoided, unless you’re a daredevil. I just read a sobering article in the New Yorker about mountain climbers and the grief their families must learn to process. They know it’s part of the territory but the climbers themselves are driven to test their mortality again and again. I’m not sure if they’re nuts or just wired differently. I wonder if they give a shit about the coronavirus.
There are so many ways I don’t want to die! I don’t want to be eaten by a polar bear. That’s at the top of my list. I don’t want to have my head chopped off or be set on fire. Oh wait, I don’t want to be trampled to death on a pilgrimage to Mecca or after a soccer game. I don’t want to die under a pile of metal shelves in CVS during an earthquake.
The right time to die is when I’m old and sick, in my own bed. That’s the best place for everyone to go, even though in the US, that privilege is only granted to around 17% of us. If the coronavirus wiped out ten per cent of the sick elderly people who become infected, that would leave more room for everyone else. Maybe millennials and Gen Z would be more open to the idea of procreating.
I discussed this with a Gen Xer last night and he was impresses by my “zen attitude.” I like that he didn’t accuse me of speaking from depression. I am depressed but obviously I’m not looking to die on purpose since there are plenty of opportunities for that.
I just see the value of thinning the herd.
What about you scaredy-cats? How much Purel have you got on hand? Or toilet paper?
Photo (c) courtesy of Dr. LaRue
You make some good points, and helped me feel better about this whole coronavirus scare (as did an older friend today, in her 70s, who pointed out that I’ve lived in a bunch of non-1st world countries, have contracted illnesses, gotten over them, perhaps have been exposed to the virus and now have immunities) She, like you, reminded me to get out there and live. So I’m heading to NYC this weekend to watch Riverdance w/my sisters and nieces. Thanks. Stay well.
One thing of Purell and two rolls of TP.
I can’t be bothered. I mean, I wash my hands a lot, anyway.
Are these my famous last words?
I need tp and food. I am scared to go shopping, and be trampled to death by insane people.
I dont have hand sanitizer.
Or bottles of water. Will the taps stop working?
Will there be gas for the cars? Will anyone care enough about their jobs to go to work?
Who delivers the pizzas?
I am also the living “ambivalent”. Either way. Live. Die.
Just dont let me starve.
My father is in a nursing home, although I’m not sure he knows that. But if he did know that, he would love to get Corona Virus (if he knew what that was) so the nightmare that is old old age would be over for him.
Just my opinion but I’m thinking this latest ‘civilizational ender’ deserves a catchier name. Remember that Carradine feller chop sueying his way across the old timey American West?
Kung Flu.
Yeah Sister Wolf I don’t want to get et by no polar bear either, same goes for that there autoerotic asphyxiation. You mention too a few ways I guess is unique to California people worrys over but adding to your vocabulary here in Arkansas we’uns has got our own unique ways, usually preceded by the soon to be a goner hillbilly with the utterance, “Hold my beer.”
Whenever you hear that stand well away. Maybe aim your smartphone.
But if it’s more’n the usual spectacular it may pay to wash your hands after that too.
Lotsa medical folk in the family, and they say it’s not just the old and sick, it’s the plain old straight-up old, too, who are fucked.
What I wanna know is, where’s the coronavirus jewelry? Dangly sparkly spiky-ball earrings? Chokers (cough-cough)? Lockets?
Steady on, JK, “autoerotic asphyxiation” doesn’t sound all bad to me! Of course, being a crusty old Brit, I’m not too sure exactly what it is! I assume it is something along the lines of giving a ‘blow job’ to the exhaust pipe of your good ol’ Chevrolet. Doesn’t do a lot for me but, hey, each to his own!
Shit….I live in the Petrochemical purgatory that is called Houston, TX…I would rather die from all of the benzine, polymers, sulfur dixiodes, and God know what else that has invaded my 60 plus years body than my stepdaughter plotting my murder for hire because she did not get the house…
People are obsessed. I’m sick of listening to it. The likelihood of me dying of boredom is much greater.
Grown people getting arrested for fighting over toilet paper…much more of a concern. What is wrong with people?
Why can’t they invent a virus that only infects the stupid? Something worthwhile.
Been doing some reading Sister Wolf and just found out what all the fuss about the run on TP is all about.
Apparently, when there’s a line of panicked folks and somebody coughs everybody else shits themselves. Can’t swear to the veracity of that research myself as here in Arkansas we’re accustomed to using leaves.
Not last year’s fallen mind. Jonquils are presenting theyselves this time of year and … what?!!! you don’t know what a jonquil is?
Whoa Sister Wolf makes sense now. The species is narcissus which even I didn’t know until now:
https://festivalnet.com/12137/Washington-Arkansas/Festivals/Jonquil-Festival
But damn wouldn’t you know it if I was to go with saksfifthavenue.com I could, according to Google Results get myself 20% more shit off. (Doesn’t mention in the ad though whether my arsehole is gonna be more particularly pleasant than just using a easier got mullein leaf what? you don’t know mullein either? Well gosh darn y’all is livin’ too close to the coast:
https://www.ediblewildfood.com/mullein.aspx
(Just don’t y’all tell any of your’n we got ‘natchurl velvety tp’ cause I’m a’hearin’ y’all are fightin’ in the aisles of your local Trader Joe’s an’ sometimes those’re ending up like a Tijuana DNA Test-Kit challenged Eskimo who ain’t figured out where or how he got there in the first place.)
Will we ever see or hear from Lev Parnas again? I mean, I’m kind of into the whole Biblical plague thing but I still want some answers and it would be a shame if something bad happened to him (or anybody else capable of providing testimony) over the course of this unbelievably surreal year that’s only in the middle of its third month.
Also: call your elected representatives and demand Thunder Dome. Seems like the best way to assure the moxie of those who seek to join the elite ranks of Space Force is by brutal gladiatorial combat to the death.
‘Suspended’ (above) should be lowered to the ground immediately for writing the very best commonsense on the topic I have read anywhere!