Enough with the crap about infringing on individual freedoms. Actually I’m pretty sure this was my thought six months ago and yet, here we still are. Let’s step back a moment and think about this from a slightly bigger picture viewpoint.
Individual freedoms are not free. How many times have I heard this in my own lifetime? It’s often associated with the sacrifices that soldiers make on foreign land in the name of defense. But that’s not the only way that freedoms aren’t free. It also comes at the price of having to work together in communities, both small and large, in order to find a balance which allows us to co-exist. We must speak up when we need to and set examples when possible. We must understand that sometimes a little uncomfortableness and personal sacrifice is needed on our part so that we can all live a generally peaceful life. We expect our soldiers fighting in foreign countries to know how to go to the bathroom in a forest or a desert yet we create mass hysteria at the thought that we might run out of a roll of toilet paper. As a group, it’s clear we are not willing to pay a price for what we perceive as freedom, we apparently think that others should pay that price for us.
To everyone out there who’s out there saying “I’m going to do what I want” regarding going to the bar, eating in restaurants, attending sport functions, holding backyard parties, larger weddings or celebrations, I’d like to add these thoughts. No one wants those things taken away. Some have just realized that if we’d all collectively stop for a moment, we could all enjoy those things again much sooner. People have jumped into an abyss screaming because they aren’t able to do one or two things they like. They feel they have zero control of anything within their own lives and in order to establish the semblance of control that they must feel in order to get out of bed each day, they’ve latched on to simple items like not wearing a mask and gathering together for a holiday. Even if those simple things are the very things that make the biggest difference to the community at large.
I haven’t, for one second since March 2020, felt like I’ve had a single freedom taken away. I don’t have some of the things in my life like others, such as kids, or sports, or kids in sports. I know that some people missed some joyous things like graduations and prom. I’m not insensitive to that fact. I just don’t really feel like my own life has deteriorated, with the exception that I’m constantly worried about people I am around and wondering if they are taking any precautions. I go to work – to an office. I go to the grocery store. For a moment in late summer when things were at their lowest in my area, I made a couple of trips to the thrift store for a little shopping. I bought a car during the pandemic, I started a job during the pandemic, I moved during the pandemic. No one told me I couldn’t do any of those things. Yet I did all of them while wearing a mask and standing a little further away from those I was with. I washed my hands and delayed or avoided other activities like massages so that I wasn’t creating a chain of virus-spreading.
I have learned that cooking isn’t as completely awful as I have always thought (don’t get me wrong, I still don’t care for it). I got outside more in the last nine months for real exercise than I have in the last five years combined. I’ve purchased books from a local bookstore and read – a lot. I’ve rediscovered the joy of planning ahead and calling ahead. I’ve ordered take-out from restaurants we would’ve never gone to otherwise. I went to the dentist and my regular doctor (for non-Covid items), both done cautiously yet still accomplished. I’ve grown some vegetables and have done a little writing.
I’ve learned that masks and social distancing means that I don’t have to worry about bad breath or food stuck in my teeth. As it gets cooler, I know that I can put on a mask to keep my nose a bit toastier and no one will think a thing of it. I’ve seen the world’s most creative crafters take to the internet to post tips, guides, patterns and tutorials on how to make masks. These are all positive things.
I personally cannot reconcile the competing thoughts of loving one’s family and simultaneously wanting to gather with them in a large group when data, scientists and statistical evidence all point to high probabilities of someone being ill and sharing this dreaded virus. I realize that most people will survive this, and I’m going to exclude the thought that perhaps there are long-term, unknown effects of contracting it. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there aren’t any of those. Let’s also just say that no one in your family will die from this. Both of those elements are unknown, but let’s pretend for a moment.
If I had a 101 degree fever and know for a fact that I have the flu, would I got to Thanksgiving? No. I would not want my seven year-old niece to be sick with the flu. If I had chicken pox, would I go to Thanksgiving? No. What about measles? No. Because I would not want anyone I know to catch what I have and feel terrible or suffer for even one moment. Of course, those examples all assume that I know I’m ill. But I’ve also heard several stories of people who knowingly have Covid-19, with mild symptoms and proceed with their daily life as if their actions do not affect anyone around them. These people are straight-up assholes, nothing less. So this example has a little bit of merit.
It’s much harder to stay away when there’s the unknown illness and/or a threat of illness. I get that. I also get that people are generally social and that our emotional health requires us to connect with someone…I’m not immune to that and I recognize that it’s important. But if we love these people we want to eat turkey with, why are they the very people that we feel the need to gather around and endanger when the stats all indicate it might be a bad idea? Why would people want to even consider threatening family members and loved ones with feeling ill or at all poorly – still assuming that no one would die or have long-term problems. Factor back in the fact that someone may actually die if infected and that raises the stakes. I just cannot wrap my head around the thoughts inside the heads of those people – and I’m related to many of them.
I’ve had to come to a few general conclusions about this for my own sanity. Those conclusions would be that people simply are unable to stop their basic impulses and prevent themselves from doing something they want to do (which is probably why Target developed the dollar shelves at the front of the store and candy bars are next to the checkout – impulse control doesn’t exist for most people). People as a group lack the cognitive ability to critically think about the information presented to them (and therefore cannot critically evaluate information provided by multiple leading sources). People are easily manipulated when all they want is the easy button to quell their internal fears and anxieties. If someone says this isn’t bad, it feels better to believe that thought because the other option is too much to comprehend.
I understand we have the freedom in this country to gather with people we care about when we want to. I just don’t understand those who believe that freedom is more important than the threat to the health and safety of loved ones and the potential to spread this virus further throughout our communities. I believe gathering in groups, against the recommendations of so many healthcare professionals, is nothing short of irresponsible. And the price we pay for continued freedom is responsibility for our own actions and being responsible enough to understand our actions – now more than ever – affect everyone we’re in contact with. Freedom is not, and never will be, free.
