One of the most difficult aspects of planet lockdown is how many people whom I previously respected are now either frustratingly mute, or even enthusiastically cheering for the evil system that has now openly revealed itself.
I mean people whose thinking and understanding in some field or in general was admirably sound or deep in some way; friends or family who were worth listening to and speaking with because they seemed to have some real, active thought going on. Real human beings, not just parrots or social mirrors. To see them now so asleep or so willingly duped in the daily presence of absurd interruptions to basic aspects of life, hearing the blatant lies and direct contradictions, going along unquestioningly with extreme and unprecedented measures that are dizzyingly out of proportion with the scale of the threat they purport to address–it’s disappointing and disheartening.
I feel embarrassed for them. They’re agreeing to live a thoroughly controlled and micro-managed life, an artificial narrow limitation on the infinite fractaline possibilities of what their life could be, willingly becoming nearly as domesticated as a modern factory farm animal. They’re rejecting their own autonomy and preferring to see themselves as a sack of potatoes to be picked up and placed as directed by insane and evil authorities. They believe they aren’t independent beings, and I don’t want to agree with them.
I’m very thankful for the seemingly few people around me who have the ability to believe what they see, and I’m thankful I’ve always been relatively comfortable with social isolation.