Deux Ex Corona

The world has been boiling up for the last two years. Either with the virus itself or the implications, it caused. Personally, I was never really afraid of the virus. At first, two weeks sounded great. I was already on my semester break, and two extra weeks would be the perfect addition to it. Then it got awkward and I got incredibly bored. Obviously, I never piled up toilet paper (I still don’t know why people did that?) or anything really… Nevertheless, things were getting a bit weird. I constantly forgot to take my mask with me, which I still do, and it was quite bizarre when I had to line up for hand sanitizer before entering my to-go-to supermarket. Fortunately, I live in a small town so not everything was out of stock, there weren’t many people around, and it wasn’t as crazy as bigger cities. I was lucky. 

Apart from luck, I was in a stage of my life where I felt very anxious about the future even before the virus. I didn’t know what sort of life I wanted to lead, and I had to make decisions because there wasn’t much time until I graduated. I really, really needed to introspect. I wish it happened under better circumstances, but it didn’t. We were all locked in. Usually, when I get too stressed or just want a fresh perspective I distance myself from my problems, go out of the town for a day or two or just visit a new country, but this time I had no chance of doing that. I was stuck. In my home and in life. I needed something that I didn’t know. Everything was unbalanced and chaotic. The virus felt like the least of my problems because I thought it was temporary… Turns out, it wasn’t. 

The pandemic became the pinnacle of the last decade’s narratives. In the first days of the pandemic, there was much news about how nature had restored itself while humans stayed inside. There were dolphins in the Grand Canal of Venice, everybody was so happy that the big bad wolves that are humans were out of the way. Phew. Some people became more spiritual in a new age-appropriate manner, and everywhere was filled with the good old “We are being punished!” story. This story is as old as humanity itself. Propaganda for veganism also increased, while climate change discourse was added to the pandemic news and propaganda. Today, when I look back, I feel like we’ve been living the pandemic or at least preparing for it for at least fifteen years. I don’t know if the Covid-19 virus was intentional or made in a lab and I couldn’t care less about it, but what I do know is, even if it was not, a hundred years later when historians write about this period it is gonna look like it was deliberate. 

It was apparent from day one that most people would want to use the pandemic for their own gain, as it goes with every crisis. Whether you were a merchant stocking up on masks or an influencer now promoting home life, everyone had a way of benefiting from the pandemic. Of course, some had more tangible gains. Recently, a famous basketball player named Andrew Bogut released a video telling that he was offered money in exchange for filming pro-lockdown propaganda. It is very normal for governments or businesses to offer money to musicians, actors, and athletes a certain amount of money to further their propaganda, what baffles me is that they expect people to believe they have our best interest when in fact they have their own best interest like everyone else. 

While the smaller fish like the influencers or the merchants were trying to make a profit of this period, true and transformative actions were always taken by the most powerful, the biggest fish in the sea. WEF was a ground point for this. Every action Bill Gates, Amazon, and Mark Zuckerberg, etc. takes now contributes to it, and while governments like Australia border on full authoritarianism and craze, the biggest companies in the world are increasing their profits immensely. 

Okay, so I would like to make a turn here. Honestly, these are all signs that something is up with the whole Covid thing, but it is not what I want to talk about, and it is not what led to major changes in my perspective and gradually life. As I said when Covid struck I was amidst several life decisions,  it felt like I was floating in the air. I really didn’t care what went on with the world much, apart from my own sphere. Covid broke me. In a good way. Of course, it also ended up destroying my trust in a lot of ways, but still, I think it was for the better. My views on health and the health industry shifted drastically. Fortunately, I didn’t have a lot of encounters with doctors up until now and I hope it remains this way mainly because of my realization about the profession. Medicine is probably one of the most paternalist professions of all, and this makes my skin crawl. 

On a standard day, one is exposed to many things harmful to health such as bad lighting, poor diet, and not enough activity. Heart problems are the leading cause of death in the world (according to WHO) and while death is the final stop, a lot of people lead miserable lives both mentally and physically. While changes in living conditions and mindfulness in certain areas of life could prevent illness and raise our quality of life, what people do is wait until they become sick and then pop pills for the symptoms.

This would have been me if I led on with my ways. While the world became more industrialized, we’ve lost tremendous life quality. Modern life has many perks, easier access a lot of variety, etc. don’t get me wrong I’m pro-free market and I have no problem with new ways of living but, the way we live sound absolutely insane to me, and it is not just about the system we live in but also our personal choices. 

I made some poor choices in life -as most people do- but when it came to my health and wellbeing I made the worst decisions, maybe I was wired that way, maybe it was my upbringing, I don’t care about that at the moment, that’s for a psychoanalysis session not for a blog post. I was incredibly disconnected from my body, I felt like I was floating around just as a mental space, but of course, this wasn’t the truth. Even the most spiritual, radically spiritual people would tell you the opposite, moreover, they would have practices to connect your mind and body. Yet here I was incredibly disconnected and then something pushed me over the edge…

After the vaccine was discovered for the C19 virus and after it was mass-produced and distributed the conversation began to change. Vaccines stopped being a personal choice and the narrative was that everyone should get vaccinated and if they didn’t, basically they were murderers. That was my a-ha moment. 

Some might call me a radical individualist, and that would not be wrong, but I’m also a firm believer in communities. I believe we need each other as human beings and I find the message ‘you’re on your own!’ that is constantly pushed by neoliberal politics profoundly wrong, but I also have to say without the individual there is no society. Things in our life that are focused to devour personal choice and free will are our enemies because they target the individual directly and without these, we can not have a conversation about either freedom or an individual. So, the medical professionals enter the scene… 

Even the term professional makes me want to barf right now. The word itself is so sterile it exists only in a bell-jar, free from all strings, isolated and honorable. It is so honorable I wish it was the truth, but we all know money, power, and at times greed gets the best of us and that has nothing to do with our intelligence or how competent we are at what we do. The real issue here isn’t that people can get greedy and use their area of expertise to achieve their means, the problem is the idea that as long as there is a professional in the room, you shouldn’t be the one making decisions about your life. In an examination room with a doctor, he holds more power over your body than you do. 

During a pandemic and any public health crisis, I usually follow experts such as data analysts on the topic or the epidemiologists who work with numbers rather than people, but I almost never listen to physicians. Their approach is based on one simple thing: keeping people alive. While that may work really well in an ER, it is hazardous for all of us in the long run. This might apply to all professionals or people who got superb at one thing, ignore everything else, or they tend to see the world through their intensive training and expertise. Unfortunately, that means we can not see the world with a clear mind most of the time. We’re biased. All of us. 

I always try to win over my skeptical side and give people the benefit of the doubt. It is certainly possible that some people really, honestly believe what is going on around the world right now is because of people who refuse to get vaccinated, and they might believe this is the only way out. However, even if this is the case, it really doesn’t justify forcing people to get a jab they do not want. This translates to me as rape, and the thing that has been going on right now is coercion. As a woman, both of these words frighten me. Recently, there have been some upsetting changes regarding the abortion law in the States, it is two-faced to support vax-coercion and be pro-choice or vice versa. Still, this is what we see all over the place. Conservatives who are super-duper pro-liberty when it comes to masks or jabs become pro-life in an instant and feminists who claim it is our body our choice want vaccine coercion, or they just hate the people who won’t get the vaccine even though this is completely up to the individual. Of course, it is okay to hate people for getting an abortion or not getting a vaccine, but when this becomes a public issue, we’re facing a bigger threat than COVID and I can say that with confidence. There is no point in remaining alive if we’re going to be chained. Literal slavery has been banned all over for a long time, but now we’re bringing it back with UBI and fear. 

Some might disagree with me and claim being alive is more important than being free. Although everyone can have a different stance on this, none of us has the right to choose for another. Covid measures should have been strictly voluntary from day one. There should have been voluntary lockdowns not governmental lockdowns and people should have decided how they were going to protect themselves. Then perhaps we would not have been in this mess in the first place. 

To conclude, it has been a hell of a ride this last two years, and we’re not close to the end. I believe worse days are coming. Yet, I am hopeful. The world as I know is gone, and perhaps it never existed, but this pseudo-crisis inspired me to take charge regarding many aspects of my life because you see when you refuse to take responsibility due to fear or anything else the thing that comforts you and frees you from taking self-responsibility becomes your master, and you voluntarily enslave yourself. While that might be okay for some of you, it is not for me, and we don’t get to choose for each other. What I firmly believe is sometimes in life you might have to sacrifice things and if you can’t choose, well, in the long run, you will end up losing everything, This is what happened with COVID.