Survivor’s Guilt : Yelling “Fire” in a Theater

It’s a funny thing to have a strong point of view and having a life experience to back it up, that I want to share, but at the same time I’m also trying not to be beholden to it, to be able to admit when I’m wrong, let it go, and understand that there are other equally valid view points that I would’ve otherwise had if only I’d lived through those life experiences. It’s called empathy, and it’s a 2 way street, it’s not just “understand me,” it’s also “how can I better understand you?”

There’s a reason I say all this, I’m eluding to the fact that I found out today that an aunt of mine just past away yesterday of covid, who in all honesty, I hadn’t seen since childhood, though I did offer my condolences to my cousin and told her I’d be there at the funeral, but also heard that another aunt and uncle of mine who I AM close with tested positive for covid today, though their symptoms are mild, they are older and I do worry for them. Also recently, an older gentleman I knew from my church growing up, a man named Pete who once housed my family and I when I was very young also past away from covid. I saw him not too long ago for the first time in years at my grandmothers funeral, and he seemed just as chipper and happy and healthy as I’d ever seen him. Seems i’d been dealing with death a lot more lately then I had been previously used to in years, maybe it’s just the age, maybe it’s also the times, but it is a funny thing.

And what’s so funny about it? I guess the fact that I just came back from this entire excursion, went so many places, did so many things, have a general idea of how I feel about covid and the way it’s being handled and portrayed, want to talk about my experiences, what they mean to me and what I drew from them, but also do NOT want to appear uncaring or insensitive to the way other people feel about it, especially when they’re grieving. When somebody is in the throws of grief, they don’t want to hear your thoughts and opinions about health, vaccine mandates, travel bans, and politics, they just want to know that you love them and that you’ll be there for them, if, when, and ever they need. And I don’t just extend that to family, I extend that to friends and yes, even strangers, cause you never quite know what somebody is going through so why kick somebody when they’re down?

I told somebody that today, how in a way I feel guilty that I went out and did all those things and didn’t get sick. Feels like I had some kind of point to prove when really I didn’t, might’ve been a part of the equation, but maybe not the biggest take away from my trip. But it’s roundabout a slap in the face to everyone that’s done “everything right,” played by all the rules, double masked, triple vaxed, stayed distant, stayed home, and somehow still got themselves sick despite all that, “following all the experts.” In some way maybe it’d have been better if I did get sick, be wrong, prove everyone else right, be just another statistic and not an anomaly, but that’s just not what happened. He told me that isn’t it better now that if I die next week that I did go out and do all those things, made those memories, had those experiences, and did things my way, the way I wanted to? He was right, I told him so, still I can’t deny my consciousness and see that there’s a double edge to having a heart, a blessing and a curse.

Despite all that, how I really feel about it is this; a lot of people in my family or that I’ve known that’ve gotten really sick or even died from covid have all had co-morbidities, weak immune systems, or other underlining factors such as old age, obesity, diabetes, etc. that were all contributing factors to them ending up that way. Lots of folk just plain do not take care of themselves the way they should, poor diets, no exercise, no vitamins or supplementations, not enough water or sunlight, no stress management, they’re not giving themselves a fighting chance for when they do get sick. I had had covid, back in January 2021, and when I had it, it was mild symptoms, only a loss of taste and smell and a slight congestion, no fever, no headache, no cough, no sneeze, nothing that at the time felt like anything I couldn’t handle. My version of the virus was light, but the thing about it is, i’ve been a proponent of health and exercise for years, I’m a jogger, I work out, I try and eat good, and especially after the pandemic had begun, I way upped my vitamin and supplement game, which is now part of my daily routine. I saw it from the beginning the areas I was lacking, that I needed to improve on, and I made the adjustment. Most people it seems to me do not want to make the change, to look in the mirror and say the result of the state of their health are mostly due to lifestyle choices and they’d been convinced that all they needed to be “healthy” was just to go out and get the shot, and that’s indicative of the type of thinking that this generation has. All anyone ever wants are just the easy answers and quick solutions. Nobody wants to have to do any of the hard work and take the responsibility for themselves for their own health, because that’s too difficult and asking too much apparently. We’ve conflated “health” with being vaccinated which in my opinion is not the case, or at least not the only factor in boosting your immune system against disease. We ALL will eventually will get sick, and if we haven’t gotten sick so far, we are lucky, but at the same time, when we do eventually get sick, it’s gonna decimate us, because your immune system needs practice, it needs something to fight off to get stronger, and all the shots in the world won’t replace actually putting in the work it takes to have a functional body that carries us through this life. My friend told me today that first before you can have a healthy body, you need a healthy mind that will lead us in that direction, and so few of us have that.

It’s true, on the plane ride home I saw a mother with her children, she was eating McDonalds, the boy was eating a bag of starburst, drinking apple juice which is really just sugar water, the other boy a mountain dew, and they all had devices and earphones on, just sugar on sugar on sugar coupled with distraction distraction distraction, no wonder people can’t tell when their sick because their just all junked up all the time they’re so used to just feeling like shit all the time. At least she was drinking a Diet Pepsi though right? Mentally and physically people just do not know themselves at all, can’t sit with themselves for even a moment without reaching for something to kill the boredom and idle their time and their lives away, and why should they? Passivity is America’s pastime, just pick your poison. But how many people live this way, and end up being the ones you hear about later down the line and then be the example of why we need MORE vaccinations, BETTER vaccinations, take away ALL their decision making cause clearly their incapable of making the “right” decisions on their own. It’s this many state we live in that says father knows best, just trust him, and go back to your game, never mind the man behind the curtain.

But how do you say all that to a person without being the asshole? You really can’t, people are too easily offended and it sounds more high and mighty than trying to show compassion, but is being too polite more detrimental to people than being real with them? I’ll give you an example, there were people on my flights that were obviously sick, you can see it, you can hear it, the wert coughs, the sniffles, all of it. People are just not being honest with themselves or are just taking the risk in traveling and nobody is calling them out on it. At the same time, I knew it, I saw it, but I didn’t say anything, just observed it. But really, are you going to be the one to go around going up to people saying “HEY! Aren’t you sick? you shouldn’t be here!” most people are like me, they see it, they avoid it, they don’t say anything. The airline too, all the TSA workers, the flight attendants, everyone else just ignoring it, and THAT’S how this thing is getting around quite honestly in my opinion, we’re all just being too nice about it, too polite, not wanting to be the assholes and say anything to anyone, so we end up trying to ignore it and let it go, meanwhile it’s spreading, and people do end up catching it and getting wrecked from it, so where does the responsibility lay? in the individual? in the collective? in the airline? in the state? These are the questions, and they ought to be discussed.

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These are the type discussions I find myself having daily, Lots of times people come to work for me and say things like “how the hell we end up talking about (fill in the blank). But really that’s just how I am, I’m not the one on the Jobsite to talk about football games, pussy, and believe it or not most times I don’t like talking politics with a lot of the guys, usually peoples heels are too dug in one which way or the other, they’ve all chosen their teams and much like sports it’s all about THEIR team and fuck everyone else, so that’s where most discussions start and end.

This is already getting overlong so I’ll wrap it up with a discussion I had with a coworker today. We were sort of arguing back and forth about rules in society, I’m more of the opinion that people need to be free, but with that comes responsibility, and most people don’t want to be responsible, so they end up trading their responsibilities and thus their freedoms for security. He’s more of the opinion that all laws put in place are put in place for a reason and that that reason has more to do with protecting the public at large and the rules need to be followed, no matter what, in order to participate and keep a society in order. The subject started getting around the subject of freedom of speech and I’ll try to recant it as much as possible:

V - There are people that think if you simply don’t like something, there ought to be a rule against it, more than that a law. Personally I don’t think there should be so many statutes of limitations on every little thing in society. Especially when it comes to matters of free speech and censorship.

R - But if you didn’t have any rules, people would just be going around doing whatever they wanted, killing each other, you need to have laws. Like for instance, you can’t just yell “FIRE!” in a theater, people can panic, people can get trampled, people can get killed.

V - I see what you’re saying but there’s more to it than just that. So you’re telling me that if someone yells “FIRE!” in a movie theater you’re just going to instantly believe them? Just a random person and you’re taking them at their word? You mean you don’t have eyes to see, you won’t be able to smell the smoke, feel the heat, and have sense enough to know if he’s telling the truth? That’s just like the shit you read online, let people say the fuck what they want, even if it’s fucked up, even if you disagree with it, even if you don’t like it, there should be any rules against it, you should be able to use your common sense enough to know if someone is telling the truth or not, to be able to do your own research and know for yourself if someone is truthful or not.

R - I see what you’re saying, but still, someone yells “fire!” in a movie theater I’m fucking them up!

V - Fair enough! haha

R - then you miss a little bit of your movie!

V - Small price to pay for freedom! hah.

R - Still you can’t just let people say what they want, there’s hate speech.

V - Who are the people that get to decide what’s hate speech and what’s not? Is hate speech simply speech you don’t like and find offensive?

R - Hate speech is when it incites violence against a person or people.

V - I agree, there are degrees, you can’t just flat out call for violence against an individual or a group, I agree, that’s wrong. But there are grey areas as well that get lumped into that way of thinking that favors censorship and banishment, and who are the people that get to decide what you’re allowed to discuss and how you’re allowed to discuss them. I’ll give you an example, covid. You know social media platforms ban you from being able to discuss covid in ways that are counter to the narrative they’re trying to push? You can only talk about things in the way they deem acceptable and if you don’t it’s considered “misinformation,” more than that it’s considered “dangerous” and “irresponsible” to do so.

R - Because people can get killed if you go online giving medical advice and they have no idea what they’re talking about.

V - okay, what about that couple that died drinking that pool cleaner in Arizona? They misread the bottle and thought they had hydroxychoriquin, drank it and died. Is that their own dumbass faults for being so stupid to thinking that their pool cleaner was a tried and true malaria medication, or the “media’s” fault for even discussing it in the first place? Where’s the responsibility lay? People ought to have free and open access to any and all information, good and or bad, but they should also have common sense enough to know how to use it, if they don’t it’s on them and unfortunately suffer the consequences, doesn’t mean we ought to ban discussions from being made.

R - We’ll they’re the ones in power, they’re the ones that make the laws and we have to obey them. They also have the power to enforce them, they got the military, they got the police, and what can you do about it?

V - Civil disobedience. You know and understand what the rules are, what the laws are, but you can’t in good consciousness abide by them, no matter if it comes at great personal strain and sacrifice, sometimes losing your job, or getting thrown in jail to stand up for what you feel is right, that’s what it comes down to. Your way of thinking, where might makes right, they have the force and we have to obey, keeps those in power with power and those in servitude in service. But might doesn’t always make right.

R - yes it does!

V - No it doesn’t. History is always written by the “winners” in society trying to erase the parts of history they don’t like and rewrite the present in a way that shows them in the best possible light.

R - Nobody is trying to erase history!

V - yes they are, all this statue removal is a big part of it.

R - yeah but fuck Christopher Columbus!

V - I agree with you, fuck Christopher Columbus, he was despicable, the things he said about indigenous people was disgusting, still should we delete hime from the pages of history or just be more honest about who he was and what he did? aside from that people have always plunged themselves into chaos in a siege for power. Look at the library of Alexandria which recorded our whole prehistory, destroyed. Look at the dark ages, that set men back for centuries before a great renaissance. In all those times people destroyed all progress and did away with all remnant of the past which kept us in the dark away from the knowledge of our true selves and where we came from.

R - what about terrorist?

V- What about terroists?

R - Freedom isn’t free, and what your saying, people ought to just be able to come and go as they please, how are you going to keep the terrorists out?

V - you know how the terrorists are getting in? it’s through this (holds up iPhone) There’s no bands of nomad tribesman in the mountains somewhere trying to figure out how to get in, they know how to open a Facebook account and radicalize people from the inside. Remember that guy in riverside that shot up that synagogue that claimed he was isis? Turns out he never even met with any of them, just got radicalized through online forums. There’s a lot of lost, lonely, incels, out there all looking for meaning and purpose and those are the easiest targets to manipulate. Outside of that, who defines a terrorist? they say that “one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.”

R - Damn V, how the hell we end up talk about this shit??

V - Fuck it R, you know me, I’m just a talker! haha, fuck let’s get back to work!