Get Out and Live

I should be making more music than I have been, this spring, but I have been getting out of the house too much to do much. It's not just an sly act of political defiance – flouting the "stay-home" order and venturing out into the big scary world of fresh air – but partly because of the conditions which render me a "high risk" for consequences of infection against "this" respiratory virus. The preventive measures imposed upon our entire society are ridiculous overkill, though if a modicum of them were commonly practiced during flu season, there wouldn't be as many deaths directly attributable to that virus as there allegedly have been from "this" virus – though influenza has never been known to cause a year's worth of suicides in a month nor put half of all independent merchants out of business so that larger companies can absorb their markets. It's not too much to ask, during the "winter" months, for people to try not to go to work while they're sick, to keep a respectful distance from others while infected, to wear masks during periods of likely contagiousness, and to not cough on me while riding the bus so that I don't have to miss a week of work from having the flu.

Not to mention "that" virus I'd caught four years ago, which caused lung-ravaging pleurisy, which could have turned to lethal pneumonia overnight, which left me with diminished lung capacity, and which caused a number of deaths around town. I asked the doctor examining me at the E.R. what was causing the infection, and he drily replied, "Oh, some virus." I saw people all over town similarly gasping for air as I was, bent forward with miserable expressions on their faces, and I heard of people dying from this illness – but it was "just some virus" causing it. Now there's "this" virus whose medical effects have not touched my life whatsoever and is being used as a pretext for causing everyone to be afraid of each other, of leaving the house, of not driving alone in their cars without masks on, and of breathing at all – but the one whose effects I had personally experienced (and still do) and witnessed copiously was "just some" virus.

There is also that They want me to be afraid and hide and self-isolate – so I refuse to do so. When I was quite young, I was socially phobic, and it took a great deal of effort, and putting myself in situations in which I had to engage with people, to overcome. I have also gone through times of being isolated from others due to grueling hardship, incapable of or unviable for social involvement. Then there have been times of crushing despondency over personal losses and persons' deaths, keeping me enfermé chez moi. The remedy for such conditions, when the opportunity arises, is to get out and live. Young people feel that they have all the time in the world to be depressed, but older people realize how precious time is for its scarcity. It becomes a matter of conscientiously struggling against it so that it not rob one of further, ever-more-precious, years. I myself have been shrugging-off this darkness that They are casting over everyone, and literally getting out into the light. Never mind that UV light kills viruses, that sunlight causes the body to synthesize vitamin D that combats respiratory illness, that exercise keeps the body running well and the immune system fortified, and that exposure to germs out there in the world is what gives the immune system a workout. This year's springtime weather is particularly beautiful, and my body, mind and spirit need the exposure – to whatever.

SteveFitch · Panaroma - Back to Life