One of the hardest things during this whole virus panic event that we been going through for almost 2 months has been to see the fear in people's eyes. When I have gone to the store, which I never stopped doing, I see people not looking at anybody. Staring at the floor and not meeting anybody's eyes. Wearing their gloves and their surgical mask like it's going to protect them. Acting surprised when I say good morning or hello.
It's hard. It's been especially hard on my wife because she is such a people person. She doesn't like it and she feels the the urge to join the herd and be scared and quiver. But I keep telling her it's okay and just be safe and wash her hands and do what we normally do and everything will be fine.
Early on when I sensed and saw the fear growing I would send my youngest son out on missions. I would ask him to go and buy me something at the grocery store. I asked him to go and buy me some plants that the hardware store. I asked him to take something to another place. And I did that to help him avoid getting caught up in this year. And to see that it's okay.
What I remember from growing up was that my grandparents were always very careful. They didn't just wander around willy-nilly into things and do all sorts of crazy stuff with people that they didn't know. They had a genuine fear that had hardened to resolve because they came through some hard times call the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the oil crisis in the 70s that was manufactured by OPEC, and so many other things. This fear that I see now is different.
I've read about and watched how mass media has focused on the inflammatory and the fear generating in the big splash headlines that they focus on for a week or two at a time. And I've read articles about how their fostering fear in their watchers. They hire psychologists and scientists that specialize in addiction and foster addiction to fear. Just like app developers foster addictive like behaviors with games like candy crush and the systems like Facebook. It's that head of dopamine that unit.
As they drive more and more people to be fearful we as citizens need to be careful that our government doesn't overreach and begin to dictate things to us that they have no business dictating. I'm watching as some governors loosen restrictions and are working to get government out of the way so that people can make choices as to whether or not they want to take the risk of opening their business compared to the risk of not making any money and losing their business. This is a good thing and this is what I would love to see everywhere but I'm satisfied to see it where I live.
Another thing that I'm concerned about is how mass media is driving so many people to think of us as a singular country when we are actually a group of states United to form a country. And it scares me that the federal government that the states put together has grown to the point that now states are looking to the federal government to bail them out under the premise of the virus but in actuality they going to use any bailout money to pay for the money that they've taken out of their retirement system promised to former employees and to cover their actual expenses for the year of you know before ever encountering this virus panic situation.
My family is safe. My family is doing fine. I hope your family is doing fine also.
God bless America!
