If It is Not for Love

“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.”

― Gabriel García Márquez, "Love in the Time of Cholera"

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Dear Kate, 

"1-in-5 Canadians believe coronavirus pandemic being blown out of proportion, poll finds."

What, I wonder, a headline like this, is trying to invite.  It wouldn't be a headline obviously if it is not inviting.

So what is it soliciting from us?  Pity?  Ridicule?  Contempt?  Indignation?  Towards the 1-in-5, of course.

And the rest of the news piece is as expected to paint a vivid picture of such moral and/or intellectual shortfall and its grave repercussion.

But do we know the who and what and why and when of how the poll was conducted?  What if I am to take a random "belief" that you once held or would occasionally hold in your often drowsy state of being after a long day of work and make a headline out of it?

But this is different, we say, people must have thought through the matter before answering, given the gravity of the situation.

I suppose they did.

I suppose we the headline-readers might not have.

If we have, before any head-shaking or finger-pointing the headline would have called out of us a few simple and necessary questions, such as the meaning of the poetically forceful words "blown out of proportion."

Out of proportion of...what?  And blown, my friend, out of it.

Now it is a simple sentence, and the it, of course, is the pandemic.  At least that's what the sentence suggests grammatically.

But maybe some people being asked by the pollster at that moment had a different sense, a bigger picture in mind (muddled creatures we are) and saw the it as how we usually conduct ourselves, what we normally (claim to) believe in, and these people now consider our response to the pandemic an overstatement, or even a misstatement based on the narrative we've been chanting to ourselves and each other all day long since centuries ago?

For example, we've been telling ourselves, teaching our kids, on the street, around the dinner table, and in the fortressed temples of consumerism and highest education (in any discipline), that science has conclusively discovered (i.e. proven beyond proof) that the universe is essentially without any meaning or purpose.  "Survival of the fittest," "nature, red in tooth and claw," we are all moving with and along the "(iron) chain of causality."  To state otherwise is to invite--you got it--contempt, indignation, ridicule, and sometimes, but not often, a little pity.

So what are we, our kids, left to believe in, to live for?  There must be some "meaning" for us to keep waking up every morning?

The best of the very best minds, professors and politicians, magnates and moguls, surgeons and beatniks, would all agree: Well, be yourself.  "Meaning" is always provisionally our own, and we must construct our "truth" for ourselves. Then fashion it, bake it, dwell in it, wallow in our sorrow and (inevitably transient) joy of it, as authentically as we can.  And beyond that?  Who knows?  And, frankly, my dear, who gives a damn?

Some might think pop culture messed us up, all them shows and songs about "being ourselves," but they are really little choruses to warm us up for the grand sermon, a meta-, mega-narrative of self-creation.  No one can sell what isn't selling.  Churches?  They too do their faithful share of doing away with religion/doctrine/theology in the name of finding the "simple gospel" that works for those of us who are enlightened to live and relate authentically---whatever the hell that means.

So, back to the pandemic, the topic we must speak about at the present time.

But what is there for us to speak about, it or anything else, if life and the universe itself are essentially meaningless?  We shame and scorn those who hoard and try to profit from it, but could these people be just living out their own truths as authentically as they can, given how challenging the situation is as we all know?  Survival of the fittest, red claw, tooth and all.

And don't anyone tell me s/he doesn't normally, usually hoard or profit from others' weakness.  Our economic model is literally built on creating disasters for others to benefit ourselves.  We go to school to learn how to hoard better.  Nothing is ever enough, and the sum of the competition must be zero.  When the Port Coquitlam mayor called the pair caught selling masks the "lowest of the low," he was beckoning us to imagine a special place in hell for people like that.  Aren't you right about that one, Mr Mayor.  It's gonna be a crowded place, likely with not the luxury of space for social distancing.

"Blown out of proportion," as compared to how we usually conduct ourselves, an overstatement, a misstatement, our response to it.

How does one stay at home as a way to protect the weak and vulnerable if otherwise one doesn't care about the weak and vulnerable?  Can one be kind and good to an abstract entity, knowing no specific face or name, let alone laying down one's life for a friend such as this?  If there is a god and he or she or it is to grant us a wish now, wouldn't we all be happy to request to have it, the pandemic, to blow over, so that we can all go back to pursue our truthful exploits of being authentically ourselves?

So it's a credibility problem.  Which is to say we are not authentic at all.

We are taking ourselves too seriously, blowing the whole thing out of proportion, don't you think?  We wouldn't stay home for the climate refugees we helped made homeless.  We don't stop creating waste for the weak and the meek.  And our anthropocentrism, to believe not killing ourselves is the highest call that would justify martial law if necessary, is too a proportion overblown if we are just, as top scientists and brilliant philosophers told us, atoms in the void, dust in the wind.  Not trying to offend anyone's sensibility (idiosyncratic truth), but don't you think Mother Nature could use some population and pollution control?

All these are questions we've assumed ourselves to have answered when we (mis)read the headline.  Everything we do betrays what we claim to believe in.  The whole thing, our worldview, the sanctuary of our humanness, doesn't stick together, has no answering power, now or ever.  Our story, our word ain't true.  Blown apart by it, we are exposed for who we are.

Don't get me wrong, I am staying home, social distancing.  Thank God for the luxury, the moral clarity that a good education, good health, good community can afford me, and the words and time to write about everything else but COVID-19.

This is not a letter about it.

Yours, Alex