I find it interesting that I am ahead of my time on so many things.
The latest example is covering the face. When I went for a 10 day hike at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico with my two youngest sons, my brother, and his two oldest sons, I did not want to wear sunscreen despite having had multiple episodes of skin cancer cut off of me. So I bought one of those gaitor things to wear around my neck and pull up over my face and ears and I used it along with a oversized floppy sun hat and long-sleeved shirts to protect myself from the sun. I did put sunscreen on my hands because I did not want to wear gloves every day for 10 days hiking with a 50+ pound pack on my back.
The facemask thing worked. It kept the sun off of my skin, it soaked up sweat and helped me stay cooler around my neck in my face, and protected me from dust blowing, and it was enjoyable to wear. It made the others uncomfortable because they could not see my mouth. And my boys made fun of me saying that I was getting carried away with things and that I was embarrassing them by wearing it.
Fast forward to today and now we're at a place where people look at you strange if you're not wearing a mask. Of all the impacts on our society I think that will be one of the biggest ones. Masks have always been associated with hiding your identity and making you look like you're up to no good. Unless you were a doctor or a nurse and you were going into surgery where the body was going to be opened up and you didn't want to breathe out things that could infect a person inside their body while they were cut open. And you did not want to get whatever was inside them on you through your mouth or nasal passage.
Now people are so scared with the coronavirus that they're wearing masks and not making any sense with them. Many people are turning them into fashion statements and spending time making matching masks out of the material that's like their shirt and blouse or turning them into sports team masks or whatever.
There are rules and laws that prohibit the use of masks in public. And those are being flagrantly ignored so that everybody can "stay safe". I'm not real sure how that works when people are using their dirty hands to pull them down so that they can talk to somebody and then push them back up. I've seen many people wash their hands than touch the outside of their masks as they're going about their day. And the use of a mask from what I've read does not inhibit the movement of the coronavirus because there virus is small enough to pass through most masks. It does inhibit you spreading the coronavirus through Ariel sneezing and blowing of mucus and all that, but the way people use masks is all wrong.
I just find it interesting that I wore a mask for years before this ever came up. Ahead of my time again!
