Sorry to hear about your friends Bosk. Yeah, I don't envy the choices that some people are struggling to make, but they do have to be smart and careful choices, or reasonable at best. Not only for themselves but for loved ones as well. We are definitely living in a different reality these days. I'm still trying to come to grips with a few things myself.
So, so sorry for your loss.
Look, not really the place, but I'm trusting you at your word, and since you wrote that, I feel it's okay to respond. If it's insensitive, you have my apologies up front, and I'll stand down...
But... they don't "have" to be smart and careful and reasonable. We make unsmart, careless and unreasonable choices all the time. Smoking, speeding, jumping out of planes, getting into fistfights... even some of those "harm" (or have the potential to harm) other people. My uncle died of COVID, and whether he was "smart" or not, or "deserved" it or not... I have no idea. He was a man of God, and while I don't share the exact beliefs he did, I have to trust, as a autonomous, competent man, he made the choices he wanted to make. I would expect nothing less of others when I pass.
Most of the things we talk about in this world - tolerance, acceptance, understanding, respect, courtesy - are REALLY easy when we're sitting in our mom's basement playing keyboard warrior. They are REALLY easy when dealing with people who have the exact same mindset, belief system and moral compass as we do. They get REALLY HARD and really quickly when we're dealing with people do DON'T share our mindset, who adhere to a different belief system and who follow a different moral map than we do. That's really the test for me and I think we - at least in America - are failing miserably. I think it boils down to a massive insecurity that is crippling our country. We NEED the validation of others that think like us and we've come to the point that we consider those that don't a threat. This is "fight or flight" writ large, in my opinion.
It's dumb luck (or genes) but I've never formed my beliefs in a crucible that contained anyone else. They've always been in my head, and I've rarely shared them (still rarely; you all get to see/hear it, but other than with my therapist and sometimes my wife, I RARELY talk about ANY of this day-to-day. Work is inappropriate for this, and with all I have going on, if I'm out having beers with my friends, I'd rather talk about football or the weather or cars or music or our other friends. I get enough of this shit shoveled down my throat uninvited, I don't want to be "on my guard" during my recreation time). As a result, I get no validation from others' beliefs, and I'm not threatened by them. Someone wants to be called "them/theirs", okay. I'll do my best to remember and to accommodate. Not because I understand (I don't, really, not deep down), not because I agree (or not) but because it's not my place to judge. Call yourself Achilles for all I care. Don't want to mask, okay. I'll do my best to stay six feet from you and/or outside. If I can't, I have a decision to make, not you.
Topic: Coronavirus Thread v.2 (Read 195319 times)
