Physical Distancing

National Park Service / D. Kopshever. Are you a herd animal, a pack animal, or a lone wolf? Being a dog person, I like to think I’m part of a pack that works together to protect each other and get things done.

Daniel Case / CC BY-SA Even Wal-mart is trying to keep its customers alive by encouraging physical distancing. If customers each stand on one of these marks, they will all be six feet way from each other. Better six feet away than six feet under!

This post originally appeared in the Cameron Herald and Thorndale Tribune on 2020-07-30 and on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands blog on 2020-07-30.

He sings the songs that remind him of the good times

He sings the songs that remind him of the better times

...

I get knocked down, but I get up again

You are never gonna keep me down

—Chumbawamba

Someone much smarter than me suggested there is much more resistance to the phrase “social distancing” than there would have been had we chosen to call it “physical distancing.” I wish I could remember who said it or where I heard it, but I think that person is right. The distinction operates on the subconscious, emotional level where it seems many people live these days.

First, people are not really wired to be socially distant. We are often described as “social animals.” We can exhibit everything from a “herd mentality” to hunting in packs. Social outcasts are “lone wolves.”

This language underlines how dependent on one another we all are. In earlier societies, exile was often considered a harsher punishment than death, reserved for the most heinous crimes. We really do need to belong to a community. We really do need each other.

Next, we don’t need to be socially distant to prevent the spread of COVID-19; we need to be physically distant. At least six feet apart. Keeping our physical distance doesn’t mean we have to feel socially isolated. We have any number of options for connecting to people we can’t reach out and touch.

In the old days, a letter might take months or years to reach the intended person. We think of texts, email, and applications like Instagram as instant messaging. With FaceTime, Instant Meeting, and Zoom, we can even see the people we are talking to, even if they are in another part of the world.

And let’s not forget the telephone. It still lets us have one-on-one conversations with some degree of privacy.

But even in this age of miracle communications, some people remain isolated because of physical or mental challenges—or simply from a lack of sufficient broadband access. We should remember to reach out to these people…from a safe physical distance.

The Worst Blogger Experience

Contrary to Google’s marketing spin, the New Blogger is only better if you:

• Don’t know anything about HTML and don’t want any real control over your blog's appearance
• Don’t use anything except a phone

I realize I am an anachronism in that I still prefer a monitor and keyboard to a phone.

This may well be the last post I make. We’ll see. I’ve tried to use the New Blogger and find it to be a real piece of shit. The old version worked, which is more than I can say for the new one. For example, the new editor insists on inserting random line breaks throughout the text:

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Fuck that!

The World Has Moved On

While I used to start most days with a full agenda, it seems most days start like this in the post-COVID world. But my planner fills up by the end of the day—sometimes by mid-morning. I still have to make sure all this activity is productive and not just frenzied motion.

This post originally appeared on the Hearts Homes and Hands blog on 2020-07-10.

Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.

—Zeno

Our times seem to have turned around. Or as Stephen King’s Gunslinger would say, “The world has moved on.” Many of us have gone from wondering how we can possibly fit everything we need to do today in one day to wondering how we will fill the time. My planner looks remarkably desolate every morning these days. But when I review what I have done at the end of the day, it is full of activities.

Okay, they may not be fun activities. But they are activities—things that needed doing.

They say, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” That appears to be true for my planner as well. It is full of little things that add up to bigger ones. This was the case even in the Before Times, when we used to be able to visit each other whenever we wanted. Then as now, the question becomes, “Do all these little things add up to something meaningful?”

Before:

It was easy to let ourselves become interrupt driven, responding to whatever stimulus demanded our attention in the second.

Now:

It is easy to strive to fill our days with activity, any activity.

Regardless of what it means. This restless flailing, this unbound need to “just do something” is part of what is driving the current surge in COVID-19 sweeping across the country like a tsunami, especially in rural areas like Milam County.

• In Rockland County, New York, a young man wanted to party even though he was already showing symptoms. His party caused at least 18 more people to get sick. According to abc7NY, at least two other parties have been held since then. Some of the young people are facing $2,000-per-day fines for refusing to give contact tracers information to help save lives.
• In Roanoke, Virginia, more than 100 new cases have arisen from a road trip to party at Myrtle Beach. Other outbreaks tied to that house party have cropped up in West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Image and Data source: Centers for Disease Control This map shows where in Texas people have died from COVID-19 as of 2020-07-10. The CDC keeps it updated.

Milam County and Texas in general are seeing more new cases and more hospitalizations than ever before. The rise in deaths will probably follow in the next few weeks, even though this part of the surge seems to be spreading mostly in young people.

In young people, the disease manifests differently. It can lead to heart attacks and strokes, which are often not listed as COVID-related deaths. But those young people are still dead, and their friends are still at risk. Remember, a stroke in a young person can lead to a long life of disability and suffering. All from one small decision. A friend of mine went from being a rising-star CPA to a welfare mom after a stroke when she was 27.

So, I’m asking you to think about the decisions you make today. Are you trying to accomplish something that will help yourself and the community. Or are you just filling time with something because it sounds fun?

“Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself,” according to Zeno. The opposite is true, too. Every little decision matters.

Please ask yourself why most of the rest of the world is able to move past the COVID-19 outbreak faster than us and choose wisely.