I’ve been here under house arrest since March 15th. I haven’t had any kind of encounter with another human being. Phone calls, texts, emails, but human interaction? No. I’m being very serious about the rules handed down regarding this pandemic. I’ve never dismissed it, I have though openly questioned how and why it’s transmission has been so weird, so volatile in so many ways and on such a global level.
I guess my adherence to these strong suggestions of self isolation, is to prove to myself that I’ve shed my feathers of nonchalance and the notion of my own immortality. I turn 61 in a few weeks, I’m hardly as young, thin and willing to take risks as I once was. That said, I don’t want to get sick, I don’t want to get anyone else sick. I’m retired so practicing solitude has been easy. Hell, I’ve been social distancing for years and never knew it had a name. I just kinda got tired of being around people and performing, for which I take full responsibility. There was a time not that long ago when I needed the laughter and applause.
Not any more and please don’t think I’m a misanthrope with some strange, late stage pathology. I don’t think I am I feel as though I’ve simply reached a certain point in my life that I feel safer being by myself (if safer is the correct word….or feeling). That might change….it might not. It’s no different that the unknowns involved with the outcome of this pandemic. It’s a monstrous sized a wait and see game.
What’s the difference between a work ethic and wealth ethic? As I said, I gleaned over the article, but I’ve thought about it and the differences are slight, but meaningful.
Work equals a paycheck, Working long and hard often equals a bigger paycheck. The more we work, the bigger the paycheck. Sometimes. If not, bigger, then that means the longer we’ll make this amount.
A paycheck at the very least, is the cause and effect we get from working. Some might view a salary as a reward. If so, therein lies the problem that the Buffet article and this pandemic have brought to a my attention. We worship the rewards of work which are never set in stone. Not even with a contract. We don’t think about that. The bulk of us don’t think about rainy days. Many of us literally can’t afford to save. Many just can’t for whatever reason, commit to the sacrifices required to saving money. The paycheck becomes everything. The work itself becomes unimportant. Can you simply get by merely tolerating your job? Perhaps for a little while, but personally, I can’t stay in a gig that gives me anxiety induced diarrhea. If I’m happy in work, that’s like taking sugar with your medicine. . Anyone who’s survived unemployment or severe under-employment knows this all too well. We have to understand in real time, what we have through what we earn, can in a heartbeat, become much less important than what we’ve lost, but only after what we’ve learned. That made sense when zi initially typed it and the rhyming part wasn’t intentional. Just a pleasant iambic mistake.
That’s what I think is important in the midst of the bad news stew we’re currently drowning in. This chance to make significant corrections. Correcting the errors that brought us to this point and it’s happening to everybody because we’re all guilty. We need to make necessary behaviors and alter mindsets that are now counter productive in what (God willing) will soon become a post-pandemic world.
I don’t want all the people who have died to do so in vain.. How unfair. First they die from this shit and then the world roars back right back to where we were before the wakes, shivas and funerals for ten people or less became “a thing”. We’re almost a month into this and have we not learned any lessons? I don’t want to throw this in the face of honest business owners who now must seek help from food bank and file for bankruptcy. Everything they have is gone through no fault of their own. Just a few months ago, they…we were enjoying a great, robust economy. Now this. THIS!!!!
A few weeks ago I was out of the country as this Covid-19 thing was really rearing its head. The global response was weird, especially watching Ireland’s state owned news explain it. I didn’t get the math of it. The response didn’t seem to fit the numbers and then came this rapid tidal wave of stock market collapses. I sat there amid the most gorgeous, greenest hills in the world, watching my portfolio hemorrhage. And there was nothing I could do…..
Except change my attitude towards it.
I won’t be so cavalier as to say it’s only money. Like you, I’ve lived without it. It matters. But so does your thought process about it. Don’t believe me, then ask about 90% of every mega lotto winner in the world. You have to have a healthy respect and understanding of how wealth works to make winning work. Without it, you become just another lottery failure footnote. Winning four million dollars in 2020 is a big amount, but it isn’t what it was once worth. And unless you make it work for you and grow, the amount of three million in wining becomes 1.65 million before you know it and just continues to go down. And once it’s gone, it’s gone. And all you have is a great house that the bank now owns, an ornate sword that John Wayne used when filming a movie about Genghis Khan….at least that’s what the seller said. And the worst part about this scenario is when the money goes, so go the “friends”. Glad handing bastards! But you invited them in, right? Your invitation had dead presidents it. As good as a WH Smith engraved “please cone”.
I’ve been asked about if I think we can ever recover. I don’t know. This is an issue that we brought on ourselves. Arrogance. A lack of humanity. Insincerity, laziness, usery, carelessness in all aspects of the word, a total me first mentality, a lack of gratitude. We’re paying a collective debt and the cost could be….I said could be a, matter of life and death. We’ve left scars upon the land (and I say this with a Yetti-sized carbon footprint) and worse, we’ve inflicted scars upon other people’s hearts. We’ve hurt people, disappointed them.
I don’t feel like this is a punishment from God, but I think the Cosmos has had a hand in this. Karmic retribution, And if we don’t cone out on the other side as more evolved and enlightened, aware humans, then we fail. I think we’ve been too dazzled by “stuff” and letting zip codes, cars, memberships, snazzy trips and even snazzier hotels, clothing labels, carat weights and yearly income define us. Those are external things. What about that which exists at the soul level? I’ve been very guilty of this of playing on the surface. And I guess after having been poor all of my adult life, crazy but periodic buying sprees are psychologically understandable. But not ideal. Despite my actions to the contrary, I’ve always believed my money, such as it is, is only as good as what I do with it, meaning who can I help with it. But this pandemic (whether man made and intentional or organic and non-weaponized) with all its associated loss, has changed me. Can’t lie. It’s moved me to change.
I hope you and yours can weather this storm and learn from it. I hope my health can survive this. I hope I’m not too corrupted and if my portfolio can hold on as well, I’ll never exhibit the hubris that I have in the past. Promise.
Simply put, I have to be a better person.
If you’ll excuse me, my knee hurts after standing on this for so long. I’ll get off now.
