When the year 2020 began, my intention was to write and publish two books over the course of twelve months. I outlined those goals here. Then I switched course, deciding to fix up my house and sell it while also cranking out at least one new book. That goal was outlined here.
Then COVID-19 came along. You can’t dine in restaurants anymore, but you can still go play golf. Clubs have been shut down, but you can still handle fruit in the grocery store that’s passed through hundreds of unwashed hands. Grandparents are communicating through glass windows with their grandchildren because they’re afraid the little demons might be infected and they don’t have enough retirement savings for a lengthy hospital stay. And people are hoarding toilet paper because that’s what intelligent life does.
If aliens were to descend upon the Earth and say “We’re here to destroy you,” I would take them aside and tell them about the Coronavirus. Five minutes later they would ascend back into the heavens, convinced we will just destroy ourselves. And they would be correct. Why waste the energy and the time? Go destroy another planet. We’re right behind ya!
Now, don’t take this the wrong way. This virus is a problem. I recognize that. It’s an unknown, and a mad scramble to find drugs to combat it and a vaccine to cure it. But, at the end of the day, it’s essentially a different strain of the flu. Maybe more powerful, maybe not. It all seems to depend on underlying conditions or a genetic predisposition to fight it. If we would all just practice some caution, instead of panic, we could get through this relatively easy. There’s no reason to tank the economy and put everyone on lockdown for something that I personally don’t think will survive the consistently warmer weather approaching. I could be wrong. I could be right. Who knows?
One thing I do know is that people are inherently stupid and selfish. My hope in humanity has been hanging by a thread for years. Decades, some would argue. No more. It’s gone. Up and vanished like a fart in the wind. The grocery stores have been picked clean like a pack of fucking vultures, because that’s what people are. Fucking vultures. You can find photos online of people buying cartloads full of eggs and toilet paper and milk, as if nobody needs to eat but them, as if nobody needs to wipe their ass but them. Fuck those people. If you happen to see them out and about, feel free to say those words to their face. They deserve it.
If you are reading this and are one of those people, fuck you and please stop reading my shit. You are the worst type of person and I don’t want your clicks.
And then there’s the media and the politicians. Let’s start with the media. They love this shit. They can’t get enough. They can’t wait to get up in the morning and tell you the new bad news. Every article and video are designed to scare the shit out of everybody because that’s what drives ad revenue. They get off on the possibility of living in a world engulfed in flames. And the politicians can’t wait to politicize death and sickness for their own personal gain. If you’ve ever wondered if the ones you elect to office actually care about you, simply gauge their reaction to a pandemic and you’ve got your answer.
Spoiler: They don’t.
Imagine if something really bad were to go down, like a virus causing healthy thirty-somethings to drop dead in the street. It would be anarchy. Like the Simian Flu in Planet of the Apes. That might actually be worth stockpiling toilet paper.