More ranting about Covid, WOOO!
Society keeps functioning the way it does because we have short memories by design. Covid especially showed, and continues to show, us that the way we are made to live is not the only way. Mostly, it is social norms that have been molded around what is best for capital, not people. Tuesday, I went over how we don’t have to be miserable in an office all day completely separated from our domestic pleasures (like our families).
I want to be very clear that the points I’m bringing up are not exhaustive by any means. If I put my head together with a few community members, I could probably compile an 80-chapter book on lessons that Covid taught us, but we were forced to forget and move on from.
These first two points will probably end up becoming their own post because I have a lot to say about them even without Covid, but first up: this health crisis has shown us just how strained and ill-equipped our healthcare system, specifically here in the US where it’s largely tied to employment, is to handle health.
Because basically everything has been shackled to needing to produce some kind of profit in most of the world, it makes sense that it would come to a head and be far too costly to actually care for a population being absolutely ravaged by a novel coronavirus. This led to a lot of health institutions picking and choosing who they thought might have a better shot at living and focusing their care there.
Example that anyone who actually takes disabled people seriously knows was happening, widespread, many disabled folks were asked to sign DNRs at the hospital because our and elderly lives don’t matter as much as healthy ones. I should not have to say that any health facility making staff choose who lives and who dies is an abject failure.
Any basic need that takes on a for-profit model is.
Again, healthcare especially is pretty pathetic in this country, so those are some posts to look forward to.
Another lesson that I actually think we haven’t necessarily forgotten, we just don’t know how to prioritize combatting it, is how much loneliness sucks. It was behind why people hated social distancing and the mandates. I have sympathy for that, because being away from our people was very hard, even for those of us who weren’t lambasting mandates. Keeping our people safe during the worst, initial period of the pandemic just ultimately won out over physically being around them.
I’m really trying to stick to the loneliness experienced during early Covid, but honestly, loneliness has been a huge problem for a very long time. We are humans. We are social beings. Even introverts have certain people they get joy from spending time with; I personally wouldn’t know but I digress.
Part of it is some of us simply lack the social skills to tend a friendship, but even that isn’t exactly an offense that could never be forgiven. The biggest hurdle is that we have so many responsibilities and things we’re supposed to do alone that we simply lack the time and/or capacity to be intentional about making time for the people we care about.
The last lesson today is a bit more recent, or rather, the latest iteration of it is more recent.
As we all know, business functions on a supply and demand basis. The way that has manifested is seemingly regardless of how well the supply is, demand for a product means companies can charge out the wazoo for said product. It has happened so many times in the 33 years I’ve been alive, and it’s ridiculous, but it is basically what inflation is.
The products affected by this completely fabricated concept (ask me about my opinion on economics as a whole, I dare you) changes quite often, but right now that product is the food we literally eat to survive.
Most of the six things I’ve chosen to talk about have to have a certain level of cooperation with entities that may or may not care about you one single bit, but the last two we as a community can definitely work on.
I’m sure a lot of you already know, but we have community gardens in Alamogordo. With Many Hands has put their focus on addressing food insecurity in this community, and I don’t think they could have come at a better time.
Segue into next week, I will finally be writing about some of the great things happening in Alamogordo.
Until Tuesday,
Salud!
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