Pre-pandemic ignorance was bliss
The health and economic consequences of COVID-19 are devastating enough, but the psychological loss of freedom the disease has brought about scares me even more because it is permanent.
I am not talking about the loss of civil liberties due to government restrictions, though that is frightening, too.
The freedom I am thinking about is the freedom of a mind unencumbered by the burdensome knowledge of how close we are to dying.
OK, that came out a little heavier than intended. Here’s what I mean.
I am thinking of things like going to the store without a mental plan of how to avoid other customers, press elevator buttons with elbows, use proper mask procedure, and wipe down groceries, without wondering what is being spread when I touch a can of soup or rub my eye with the back of my wrist.
I am mourning the preCOVID-19 time when I could return to my house without knowing I should wash my hands thoroughly. Washing my hands is easy and painless, but it’s amazing how deeply I resent the fact that washing my hands is a new existential “you must” that will pass through my head every time I pass through my front door for the rest of my life.
Washing my hands thoroughly when coming home was a good idea before COVID-19, because bacteria and viruses were transmitted from surfaces to hands to mouth and eyes then too, which of course I knew intellectually; but it was something I did not truly, deeply consider a matter of life and death, even though it was. I was lighter when I did not truly, deeply consider it, and it makes me sad that I will never be quite that light again.
I like to consider myself someone who believes knowledge is power and facts are friends. I support evidence- based science and oppose the burying of one’s head in the sand to avoid difficult truths.
This is hard to reconcile with how I feel right now. Right now, I feel like I lost something valuable when COVID-19 forced me to internalize the objective reality that as a human being, I am just as susceptible to the amoral workings of natural selection as any chimp, bat, tick, or — yes — virus. I feel like my kids, who will spend their teen years and adulthoods in intimate touch with this certitude, lost it, too.
The many Buddhist and mindfulness authors and meditation teachers whose books I have been reading and advice I have been trying to follow for at least 30 years would be disappointed, I guess. I if understood them correctly, facing mortality and suffering directly is supposed to be the path to enlightenment. It is the goal. And I all I can think to say, in the middle of this lockdown and the beginning of a less mentally insulated future, is, “I didn’t want to know.”
I am sorry if this all sounds a little melodramatic.
I am aware of many eloquent and moving descriptions of the tangible horrors of this crisis. The physical pain and suffering, the loss of colleagues and loved ones, the sudden drop- off of life-sustaining income.
I do not mean to minimize those accounts by sharing my thoughts about a much smaller, more ethereal blow. But I think that blow matters, too.
“He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,” William Golding wrote in Lord of the Flies, “where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet.”
I do not want to spend my life watching my feet or for my children to have to do the same. Not because there is anything terribly onerous about watching your feet. It is just a tiny tilt of the head. But because of all the beautiful things around you that you miss when your eyes are fixed in a downward gaze.
Maybe the greatest luxury of civilization has been the freedom to explore and savour things, places and experiences just for the heck of it, the basics of survival having been largely taken care of.
In a sense, COVID-19 has brought survival back to the forefront of our consciousness. And even though survival was crucial all along, I am sad about the way it has now explicitly taken over parts of my mind that used to be free for enjoyment, pleasure, basking and appreciation.
This is a change that will last beyond vaccines and economic recoveries. As such, it strikes me as being one of the saddest parts of the disease.