Friday, December 31, 2021
Same Auld, same Auld Lang Syne
This New Year’s Eve instead of singing Auld Lang Syne, I’m going to sing same old anxiety.
Not only does it NOT feel like 2021 has come to end, but it feels like 2020 and to some extent 2019 hasn’t ended either. And with yet another new variant of the Coronavirus spreading throughout the world, it’s beginning to look like things will be very much the same in 2022.
I’m usually an unabashed optimist and always try to look on the bright side of life. (Go ahead and sing it. I know you want to.) But the events of the last few years have left me so very tired that even I am having trouble giving people the benefit of the doubt. I’m beginning to think that Eric Idle was right and not only is life “quite absurd, and death's the final word” but that people are treating life like a piece of $h!t and are making death a joke by listening to pundits and politicians instead of scientist and doctors, who actually know what they’re talking about.
I’m also exhausted by all excuses people give like “the government can’t tell me what to do” or wearing a mask or vaccine mandates “violate my rights.” I’m tired of trying to explain to people that even in a democratic society, government DOES in fact have the right to tell you what you can and can’t do. If it didn’t, we’d be living in anarchy not a democracy! Furthermore, with the rights we have as Americans, comes responsibility to others, yet no one is talking about that!
Contrary to what some pundits would have you believe, the government isn’t saying you must wear a mask at all times and get a vaccine shot or you will be arrested and sent to a gulag somewhere.
No. The choice on whether you want to do that still resides with you. All it’s saying is that if you want to go into public places, you will need to abide by certain rules designed to help protect others. It’s your choice. Don’t want to mask up or get the jab? Fine. The government doesn’t care. You can stay home and do what you want. But if you want to venture out into public, where you can potentially spread the virus to your fellow citizens – or worse yet catch it yourself – then you have mask up or get vaccinated. The choice is entirely yours.
I don’t understand why people can’t seem to grasp this concept. Growing up, I never heard one complaint about the “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” signs on restaurant doors. If you wanted to eat out, everyone knew you had to put on a shirt and at least wear some sandals before entering an establishment. Same thing about the 25 MPH speed limit through residential neighborhoods. No one ever screamed that the government was violating their rights by making them drive their car slowly through streets kids play on instead of driving it however fast they want.
These are THE SAME TYPES OF RESTRICTIONS as the mandates that people are now screaming about! And despite a year’s worth of proof that masks and vaccines drastically slow the pandemic’s progress, there’s still a large minority of the population who doesn’t believe this.
That’s why I’m no longer optimistic that 2022 will be any different than 2020 or 2021. If this keeps up, the pandemic will drag on and on and drawing ever closer to my friends and family until it finally claims someone close to me.
So that why at midnight (with apologies to Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns ) I’ll be singing:
For old anxieties, my dear
For old anxieties!
We'll need a jab o' vaccine yet
To put to rest old anxieties!
