I’m looking forward for another year to start. Sadly, the premonition is that COVID-19 will make of this – another devastating year for the world.
Happy New 2021!
2020 was a year to remember… and I know for a fact many of us would like to forget it, because calling 2020 a challenging year is a gross understatement. There were so many terrible things going on simultaneously, and we got to see the worst – and surprisingly the best of many people. I prefer to focus on the latter, because dwelling in the negative is easy. Instead, finding a silver-lining and making the best of a situation, takes courage – and skill. With that said, I find that it is important to identify shortcoming and lessons learned in order to make a round turn towards improvement. Below is my first self-rant / observations towards making 2021 better than 2020.
Get to know people for who they really are.
If there is one single bizarre silver-lining to 2020 is that we came to identify the many people who will cling to conspiracy theories and boast far and wide about their misinformed reality as fact. How is that a silver-lining? In my view, because it makes me more aware of their (newfound conspiracy theorists) state of mind and help my decision making as far as trusting their decision-making skills. I am not just talking about the pandemic, you choose the topic… religion, politics, science, fashion, laws, altruism, charity, food, flat-earthers, etc. It does not matter what the topic is, the dissenting views often take little time to spread. I am perfectly fine with people voicing their opinion, what I am not ok with is having those opinions turning into actions that will ultimately infringe in another’s person’s ability to live their lives effectively.
Personally, I welcome discussions, even from dissenting points of views – with factual basis. My firm conviction is that a factual argument must be logical, measurable and demonstrable. Otherwise, it is just conjecture – you know, like an opinion. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that does not mean I am required to agree upon unfunded opinions, or to follow them at face value, or that those opinions won’t be subjected to scrutiny. Facts, in the other hand, don’t care about your opinion – or feelings for that matter, and yes – facts are also subject to scrutiny. The difference is that you can actually prove a fact as a demonstrably measurably logical instance or statement.
For example, if a person’s opinion is to disbelieve in the existence of gravity and decides to jump from a 5th floor thinking they will be ok, the forces of gravity will mercilessly splatter that person at the culmination of that fall. In contrast, a fact-driven person would view that as a very illogical thing to do. For instance, there are existing methods to measure mass acceleration, and the resilience of a flesh and bones body against a vertical vector speeding towards a solid mass. A factual person could deduce that at such an altitude, even if the jumper won’t quite reach terminal velocity, that jumper will still be traveling pretty freaking fast towards the ground.
Further, the fact-based person will also realize that it not so much the acceleration that will create the ultimate “ouch factor” to the jumper, but rather the rapid deacceleration into a sudden stop when that body hits the ground a speed that is not safe for human consumption. And it is demonstrable, I mean you can throw a similarly fragile object over a scalable distance… say a beer mug from the top of a table… and see if it survives unharmed… by the way beer mugs don’t have internal organs that would get concussion by sudden deacceleration (a.k.a. an actual human body has a lot more parts that will potentially get damaged due to its intrinsic complexity), but you get the idea. Based on those factors it is logical to assume gravity is an actual thing, and people should not be jumping off a 5th floor – thinking there is no risk involved to such an action. By the way, I have met a person who asserted gravity was a hoax, fortunately this person has not jumped off from any considerable height – to my knowledge.
The elephant in the room – the pandemic
This pandemic uncovered something startling. It is not only Mr. I-got-splatter-on-the-ground-because-I-don’t-believe-in-gravity that gets hurt. This time altruism and empathy play a key role on the spread and control of the disease. Non-factual people become a vector of misinformation that affects the collective, and this disease (or any other) will continue to spread as long as there are people confusing their opinion as facts. Bad situations thrive on willful ignorance when a handful of people affect a larger group. In this case, this willful ignorance is feeding a vicious cycle that goes far beyond the inconvenience of being stuck home, it leads to people losing livelihoods, death, economic decline, etc. All because a relatively small group of people think they are right – despite actual facts splattering the entire planet against their misguided hypothesis. Yes, this crisis has been getting a lot worse.
Actions have consequences, and again not understanding the mechanics of a situation does not mean that something is not happening. I like to illustrate with this example: Most people know how to drive… You push your gas pedal, and the car moves… however most drivers might not know EVERYTHING that happens under the hood as they push that pedal. I won’t go through the whole list today, but my point is there is A LOT of stuff that should work cohesively for that car to actually move when a driver presses the pedal.
But just to briefly illustrate this example to the more cynical crowd, when you push the accelerator pedal, this moves a lever on the floor, the level opens one or more valves, the valve(s) allows an “X” amount of gas into the engine, gas combusts and moves the pistons, the pistons move the crank shaft, the shaft makes the motor spin, the motor is connected to the transmission, the transmission will move the shaft to the powertrain, the powertrain will move the wheels, and the car moves. But that would only happen if the transmission was in gear, and you had sufficient gas in the tank, or even if the car’s engine is actually on. You see what I mean? There is complexity in every situation, and additional controllable and non-controllable factors tend to be involved on a situation – affecting its outcome. This is also true on things we take for granted (and yes, I know this is a non-all-inclusive list about automotive acceleration, let’s just go back to the conversation).
As I type this, I am scheduled to get my vaccine next week. I am very grateful to be in line so fast, even though, I must admit I am hoping that there won’t be any serious side effects. With that said, I look forward to mitigating the possibility of becoming a vector to spread this virus or ANY disease for that matter. Besides, my wife will give me the business – forever – if I let this opportunity pass. This disease as any other affliction is like playing a sick game you did not want to participate in the first place. However, there are rules to abide in order to win (or at least not lose miserably). We cannot opt out of this sick game; we are stuck together with it – unfortunately.
The rules to systematically eradicate the foe (in this case the disease) are very straight forward: Wash your hands for ~20 seconds, stay far enough from people outside your social bubble, avoid crowds, avoid places with poor air circulation, and my favorite rule – and the one that has gotten the most misinformation during this pandemic in the great USA: Face-masks don’t necessarily prevent people from getting the virus, the mask is intended to minimize the risk of an infected person to spit out or exhale the virus – and subsequently infect others.
If people would follow those simple rules, a lot of the other problems will be minimized as well. I am talking about mitigating “lockdowns” and “shutting down” places of work. It is frustrating, because a small minority of people who do mental gymnastics to go against the rules of the game affect the collective effort… and the same people who are dropping the ball wonder why we (as a collective) cannot move forward. By the way, that’s exactly why this virus keeps spreading like crazy – and will continue to do so. I’ll make a separate post about the mask, because that’s a different-though-related rant all together.
It drives me crazy to hear people trying to rationalize this problem as if it was not significant, or dangerous. Or that it is overhyped by some sort of mass media hidden agenda. Really? News flash, more than 180 countries in the world who don’t agree on essentially anything, agree that this is a problem, because it is. Again, not understanding the mechanisms of the problem, does not mean there is no problem. Much like ignoring an overdue electric bill does not mean you won’t get your lights cut off. I find it specially insulting to those who perished in 2020 because of this disease – and I’ve met people whose life got cut short because of this.
Yes, this disease might not kill you directly on its own, but it will tag team with other conditions and make it harder for an infected person to prevail. I know this disease does not affect every person equally, but I would hate having in my conscience the understanding I was an additional vector of a disease that could cut somebody else’s life short. I find it especially callous when people talk about the percentage of mortality rate not being as high, or that deaths are contributed to this disease when they had other conditions. Well guess what? If a person gets very sick, and cannot suck it up at home, their medical bill will also be astronomical. Let’s not make it harder on people who are already having a hard time surviving this crisis.
To all those who feel that the mortality factor is not a big deal with this disease… I like to illustrate with this example. Say a person has pancreatic cancer and has been given four years to live, but then somebody mugs the person right as he/she leave the doctor’s office and shoots this cancer patient in the face, killing this person instantly.
The deceased still has pancreatic cancer, but there was a different factor that cut the person’s life even shorter. That’s exactly what this disease does to those immunocompromised people. We will only conquer this disease together when we shift the mindset from “me” to “us” – it takes from all of us to educate each other with the facts… again facts are logical, measurable and demonstrable. And those people who got very sick and managed who cling to life after complications, they still have scarring medical and financial conditions that will sustain long after they “recover.”
The disease rises when we lower our collective guard down. Just look at the “waves” on each country and look at how they have chosen to tackle the same problem. Meanwhile, I will continue to follow the rules of this sick game. We are stuck with this until all players either help us win, or we end up losing all the nay-sayers to the disease. There is a lot of anecdotal stories about people who thought this was not real and didn’t get to see 2021. I will stick to what has worked for my family and me. This New Year’s we celebrated just in our small bubble, and though it was different we created great memories together. Happy 2021, may al your goals become a reality! HLC