The fifty-second week of the pandemic, it seemed, was marked by an onslaught of optimism. Cases and deaths continued to fall, vaccinations were up, and the Biden administration had managed to pass a major recovery bill. By the Fourth of July, the president said, everything would be pretty much back to normal; maybe not quite to the point of congregating mask-free in your favorite Christian mega-church or corporate sports venue, but a backyard barbecue with friends and family was very much within reach. It was also the first week of spring weather; in the park, a new carpet of spring crocus had transformed the landscape into something out of a fairy tale. It had been a tough year, but life was again beautiful.
As much I tried to summon the spirit of this optimism, I found it ephemeral. The recovery bill was obviously better than nothing, but it was still hard to believe that, after a year in which 500,000 people and counting (in the United States alone) had died from a largely preventable disease, we still lacked any form of universal health care, not even a public option. It begs the question of how many deaths it *would* take: a million, maybe two? Or is possible that no number is too great if it requires making fundamental changes to the 'market economy,' changes that might result in more resources being channeled in a systematic way to those scraping by in the lower percentiles of the wealth and income grids? Sadly, if the recovery bill is any indication, we still seem to be in death mode, with the primary objective to shovel as much money as possible -- via Cobra extensions and ACA premium subsidies -- into the insurance industry, which is already seeing record profits as a result of people foregoing regular medical care over the past year. The legislation gets cash to people who need it, which yes to that, but -- given the sunset provisions -- there's almost nothing about it that could be considered transformative in the long or even medium-term, with the result that -- my political fear -- it's going to lead to a lot of very dissatisfied voters, and we know how that story goes.
I understand the desire to get back on the road, which in the context of the pandemic means the end of lockdown. It would be nice to make plans with (some) people, maybe even to have a barbecue on the Fourth of July. But for me, as I began to realize this week, I'm still ambivalent about returning to 'normal,' and not just because I fear that normal will feature the same structural inequities that have defined the last fifty (or more) years, but also because the distance I've created (or been given) during lockdown has allowed me to better envision a social structure that's less antagonistic to those (like me) who are less interested in a life defined by expectations of income, marriage, and children. When you're immersed in this structure, it doesn't seem so bad, and -- if you have a position of relative privilege -- better than so many other scenarios, a comparison that's easy to make because so many of these bad scenarios are perpetuated by the same system. We are trained to tell ourselves: 'Be grateful -- things could be so much worse!' Which, as long as you're in the system, is true. But when you're removed from it, there's an opportunity to assess the system with more distance, to understand the ways in which it effectively punishes you for not adhering to the norm. Much of this punishment is rooted in the material -- the threat that deviation will prevent you from earning the money necessary to survive -- but much is psychological to the extent that deviation from the norm is viewed as a moral failure.
Is it wrong that I don't miss interacting with thousands of people every day, some percentage of whom can be counted on to make a homophobic remark that is reinforced by the barrage of advertising and mainstream news and entertainment to which we are constantly subjected? Yes, there's widespread acknowledgement, if not quite consensus, that homophobia (and racism, and misogyny) are wrong, and there is always discussion of making accommodations for those who don't quite fit the mold, although these accommodations are always premised on the idea that those who benefit must in turn conform to the prevailing model. But what if homophobia (like racism and misogyny) is built into the system itself, in the same way that sacrificing millions of lives for economic profit is also -- apparently -- built into the system? Is not reasonable to want to avoid such a system, to maintain even the small distance from it that lockdown has provided? This isn't a question with an easy answer, but it's one I find myself asking as we breathlessly anticipate getting back to normal.
I used to think that the trajectory of my life could be framed from social butterfly to misanthrope, but what I've come to realize is that I have no problem with (most) people; in fact, (most) people are amazing. We make the best things. We are often hilarious. We are all (subjectively) sexy and talented. Some of us try to forget about the world by writing and recording cool, shoegaze-y songs like this one :)
Would I be writing songs if I hadn't been given some distance (in practical and psychological terms) during lockdown? Maybe, or maybe not. It's a question I could ask about many parts of my life as I compare it before and after the lockdown (and contemplate a new, post-lockdown routine).
So yes, I'm looking forward to the end of the pandemic, but I also fear the end of this period of (relative) insulation from a system that, at the moment, is still ravenous and destructive.
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