Further to this: I fully acknowledge that it’s probably really hard for a lot of people to think about Covid being worse than the general consensus because a lot of people were really, really scared of Covid. They think masks don’t work so in their minds, there is NO hope.
https://twitter.com/amandalhu/status/1844936178979746253
So what would you do if you have no hope? You give up. It’s a lot easier position in some ways to be in to understand how something scary works and have it demystified to just a problem to solve. And damage has been done for some people, and there isn’t yet a way to reverse it.
I’ve always thought that you can’t deliver bad news to scared people without a piece of hopeful news to go along with it. That’s why I continue to talk about prevention and about how building a community that believes in enabling disabled folks keeps me going.
And more and more, I see the vehement denial and inability to reckon with scary things, that manifests as bullying or wariness towards a mask wearer like me, as a self-soothing tactic for others. The sight of a mask shouldn’t make people react as strangely as they do.
But it makes a lot of sense if it triggers something very uncomfortable for them that they otherwise try to avoid feeling.
I get it from doctors, teachers, lots of people who “should know better.” Utterly bizarre behaviour that doesn’t make sense in the situation. Why are they swearing to me that they’ve been fine since Covid and it wasn’t that bad and wanting me to agree? Why do they care what I do?
The implication that I am judging them and their need to justify their behaviour when I am just existing tells me that they’re not trying to convince me. They’re trying to convince themselves
And it means accepting the thing they can’t emotionally accept: we are all surplus and sacrificial to others. Our society doesn’t imbue worth to that many of us. That is scary. So we have to build community on trust and truth and care to matter.
And we also have to go through the process of accepting sad and scary things so that we can start seeing them as problems to be solved. Because we are aware that no one is going to fix them for us. We have to find people to fix them *with* us
Like, here: a totally bizarre response to COVID that is conspicuous in how laissez faire it is compared to any other disease. I really feel like there is a huge over correction when it comes to COVID that is super weird and doesn’t make sense
https://twitter.com/drgorfinkel/status/1844792572209660332
I always say, I don’t think in any way that covid is the *only* problem. But it is notable how little we are doing to the address the problem when we need to be doing A LOT more and that it’s super clear that the response is WEIRDLY different
But, it is similar in the way we are approaching the climate crisis. Another very scary problem. So that makes me think that it’s actually about emotions.
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