Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

allow me to amend this. rather, when it is pointed out to you that humans are seldom rational, but engage in large numbers of behaviors that are irrational, impulsive, greedy, thoughtless, or based in mistaken impressions, poor understanding, bad data, or plain impulsiveness - to mention just a few behaviors which cannot be explained as the result of a rational process - you seem incapable of incorporating this information into your assessment of the problem.

― Respectfully Yours, (Aimless), Sunday, December 20, 2020 11:39 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

because if I do something wrong and become a target, then trying to explain "please stop, humans are seldom rational so how was I supposed to know" is highly unlikely to go over well.

Has this thread been tested for lead paint?

how is trust not important? I guess I'm doing it wrong

if the problem is you getting shouted at for traveling during the worst part of the pandemic, then either a) don't travel or b) don't publicly announce that you are traveling

if the problem is you staying home and thinking the government sucks, then the people yelling at you are wrong

because if I do something wrong and become a target

you all make it seem so neat an uncomplicated, but it's not

^

it really is not uncomplicated, especially given the fact that "individual decisions don't matter and it's wrong to think they do" and "individual decisions do matter and it's wrong to make the wrong ones" are coexistent mandates

these are mandates that you are imagining, though. nobody with authority is issuing them, and you can dismiss literally every single nonentity issuing them by pointing out to each of them that they issued a contradictory opinion previously.

how is trust not important? I guess I'm doing it wrong

if you trust that someone has been safe, and that person has visitors who have spent days traveling across an infected planet to get to them, then you probably are trusting wrongly, yes

you can choose to take the risk that the visitors have not picked up an infection on the way, or the risk that if they have, you will not get it, or that if you do get it, you won't pass it on to anyone else. but the trust is irrelevant.

(I might catch it if I go to the shops and buy food! It's a risk. But not eating food also comes with a risk, and hanging out without a mask in the home of some rando I meet at the supermarket is a higher risk than passing them while masked and putting some vegetables and nuts in a basket.)

if I do something wrong and become a target

when people are acting irrationally or selfishly you can just as easily do something right and become a target.

this is a common dilemma. it can only be resolved by making a choice that is within your power to enact and how others react to that is beyond your control. if you cannot choose until you can accurately predict with certainty that which is only in the control of often irrational actors, based on imponderable factors, then choice becomes impossible and so does action. if your perception is that it's possible you may be attacked for anything you do and this freezes you in fear and doubt, then that is going to shut you down entirely in every case and there is no solution for that until you find the courage to act in spite of fear and doubt. sorry. that's life as it is experienced by everyone.

the courage to act in spite of fear and doubt

this is extremely unhelpful language in the circs btw

provide better words then. i'm doing my best.

"if you trust that someone has been safe, and that person has visitors who have spent days traveling across an infected planet to get to them, then you probably are trusting wrongly, yes"

I agree. I’ve had only one friend I’ve seen in person in the last ten months - only one - no spouse or child or sibling or parents or other family members or friends. and now I don’t feel like I can even see her. it feels harsh

If she's been also isolating in the last ten months, then that trust was probably warranted. If so, go see her again two weeks after her child leaves, if she tests negative. If she has been having other visitors, maybe don't.

https://i.imgur.com/BDit1i5.jpg

a perfect example actually of "I doubt explaining that I converted to a religion would make people understand"

death comes at you fast

wow, I know I've been away from ILX for many years, so I don't know the personalities involved, but I don't see why there was such a pileon in reaction to katherine's post-- isn't this supposed to be the place to vent both rational and irrational thoughts and fears about a reasonably unprecedented situation? Seems like a lot of unnecessary bullying for a question that's actually pretty reasonable.

But I guess that's exactly the kind of thing that made me stay away from ILX for years...

Yeah, I'm a little flummoxed by the vitriol, too.

Do your best to keep yourself and those around you safe, knowing what you know.

That's what I've been doing this entire time, as someone who is immunocompromised and who has a partner who works in a hospital. It truly isn't that difficult.

Welcome back to ye both

if I do something wrong and become a target

This sounds like the title of a collection of Morrissey outtakes.

wow, I know I've been away from ILX for many years, so I don't know the personalities involved, but I don't see why there was such a pileon in reaction to katherine's post-- isn't this supposed to be the place to vent both rational and irrational thoughts and fears about a reasonably unprecedented situation? Seems like a lot of unnecessary bullying for a question that's actually pretty reasonable.

But I guess that's exactly the kind of thing that made me stay away from ILX for years...

― colette, Monday, December 21, 2020 7:20 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

because don't you know, once somebody is Bad(tm) then there is absolutely nothing that can be said or done to them that isn't justified

Colette, Katherine is unwittingly answering your question here. People have exhausted themselves trying to disabuse her of this absurd notion—that there is some kind of public online tribunal that should dictate one's behaviors else be labeled "Bad(tm)."

I think what you are understandably reading as harsh is just cumulative fatigue.

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested by The Discourse.

I haven't really seen vitriol directed toward people who disagree with the idea that asking people to take some degree of thought for the health of themselves/others is letting the govt. off the hook, but maybe I'm not in the correct online spaces. I'm sure it exists, but I'd write those opinions off.

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested by The Discourse.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 21, 2020 4:47 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Busted! You are NeinQuartely and I claim my reward of three tailor-made aphorisms.

Have to say I’m impressed (?) at people going straight to mock katherine, whose anxieties may be misplaced but are, I think, genuinely felt, when you’ve got this lad showing up in this thread a literal week after posting this to feign misunderstanding again!

I'm impressed by, and envious of, some of my friends' fearlessness in the face of this. They're not covid deniers at all, but they are able to live their lives with some semblance of normalcy, even extending to traveling with family and friends to holiday destinations with precautions but without worry. They are younger than me, so I can kind of get it. I would like to join them and feel like I'm missing out, but I can't.

― Dan S, Sunday, 13 December 2020 02:45 (one week ago) link

fair enough

recency bias

katherine, I take it that you’re mostly venting here and not in search of answers, per se?

I mean, I understand the tightrope you’re outlining about how to present yourself in the public sphere, and I’d lean toward saying “honestly.” And a bit cautiously, which you get since you seem to have a strong understanding of how others have a poor idea of how they’re perceived

as for the topic at hand, I think it’s both true that individual actions don’t especially matter in the face of incredibly mixed signals from the government and at the societal level and that some individual actions are more egregious than others

the difference is that individual actions wouldn’t happen if we had enforcement, and the moral justice types shaming others for their individual actions are wildly inconsistent due to a lack of consistent standards at a societal level. people are coming up with ad hoc moralities, and there are as many of those as there are people

which is why I get the suggestions about finding a moral center (or even set of rules that guide behavior) that’s both non-governmental but consistent. those rules will fail us, at times, but having something you can always return to for moral guidance is a stabilizing force, and oftentimes you get a community along with

Suspicious that people get snippy because no one else understand what 'discourse,' 'rules,' 'Bad(TM)' actually mean, it's always devoid of specifics ("people are saying..."). I dunno, people have opinions. You don't have to care about anyone else's opinion.

Individual actions don't matter but still have meaning isn't contradictory - your personal recycling has a negligible effect on the world, but if you make it a point of pride to refuse to recycle you're probably an asshole.

Yep. Just about everything is like that. There is the rest of the world and your idea of what “people” think or want, in all it’s contradictory glory, and then there is your inner mind and conscience and what you think or want. They’re both unreliable and in constant tension with each other.

If you're at least concerned about the impact of your actions, you're on the right side of the line imo (as opposed to those who think it's everyone else's job to carry the water).

I've just kept repeating 'safer at home' like a mantra this year. If it's not necessary to go elsewhere, it's better not to. And that's why I'm spending the first Christmas without my family in 43 years and opting instead to celebrate the season by just occasionally collapsing into wracking sobs. New experiences are good for us!

<3 to you Old Lunch, that sounds hard.

one time I decided to put my paper recycling in the plastic bin and 20 people died

Thanks, KM. I just keep telling myself that many more people are having a much worse holiday this year to stave off the 'feeling-sorry-for-myself's this year.

Oh btw, for those interested in ways to be in touch w/your loved ones at this difficult time: at Thanksgiving my fam opted to hang out virtually via Google Meet instead of Zoom, et al and it worked beautifully. No time limit, either, so we were fucking around and drinking 'together' for hours on end. Highly recommended.

I moved to Mexico this year (insane, I know) and the amount of American tourists who just don't give a shit is staggering

Idk if that’s insane, I keep fantasizing about moving to Mexico.

If anything I've become way closer to my immediate three housemates. I feared we'd be sick of each other by now but I am enjoying marriage and parenting rn.

I theoretically miss my friends and extended family, but in a lot of cases I pretty much always interacted with them at arm's length and/or virtually.

Another way I seem to be coping idiosyncratically is that I don't much miss seeing live music. But I desperately miss performing live. Before March I was playing out weekly, sometimes twice weekly. Plus rehearsing and recording. That's the bit I miss. The nerves, the rush, the camaraderie, the serendipitous collaborations, the rooting for one another, and (gag) the friends I made along the way.

I've done some asynchronous recording, and 50+ solo recordings, but it's not the same. Contrariwise I feel like I can see my favorite famous, established artists all the time. Not just stuff they've streamed in quarantine but good live recordings from the last half-century and more.

i miss band practice so gd much

i miss band practice so gd much

Yup. And like even the most sparsely attended acoustic-open-mic thingy seems like a paradisical lark in retrospect. Some of my musical friends kept gigging through the summer and fall on rooftops or outdoor venues with tents and heaters, but I just didn't feel like that would be safe. Maybe next spring the picture will change.

the last round of gigs i did before covid were pretty depressing and dispiriting experiences (unrelated to impending covid), enough to get me questioning if i wanted to keep doing it tbh, having an enforced break from performing has been good for me as far as taking that whole issue off the table for a good long while

the most undeniably "bad" thing anyone can do in the current circumstances is to be unkind

* without reasonable provocation

a neighbor directly across the street has a handicapped parking spot right in front of his house, and it's the only thing in the world he cares about. whenever someone parks there, he comes stomping out of his house within 30 seconds, so i know he just sits by the window, watching. he is obviously not doing well. but he also likes to scream himself hoarse, uses racist epithets, and has called the police called on him for physical altercations multiple times in only year i've lived near him. he is a fucking asshole. lately i've started standing in my window and staring at him as he yells, pointing, putting my hands up in the air like "what the fuck, you old fucker!?". today he was going off on a neighbor again, then he saw me in the window and let me know that he would like to shove a stick really far up my ass.

i'm thinking about buying an airhorn and blasting it at him next time, only when he talks

multiple neighbors were shouting "shut the fuck up!" at him today, from both directions down the block. it almost brought a tear to my eye, it was like being back in brooklyn

Old Lunch, that sounds very hard. Since I lived across the continent for many years, not seeing each other all that often hasn't been as hard for me and my folks, even tho we now live a 20 minute drive from them. We're going to meet on Christmas eve to do a handoff of presents, and that's about it. Maybe a Zoom that evening.

xp -- I am just trying to figure out the right thing to do because the pandemic is probably one of the highest-stakes ongoing moral decisions of my lifetime, but that is almost impossible when the definition of "the right thing to do" changes every day to mutually contradictory things

It doesn’t, though?