It’s grim - to start a new year, tweeting about the pandemic. But here we are.
I’ve spent the past months coming to terms with the fact that most of my neighbors - & a huge swath of America - know of Covid’s lethality, & simply do not care.
They know it’s a very real threat.../1

2/...to their health/lives, & to the health/lives of others. And they do not care.
They don’t.
They care about their wants. Their level of enjoyment of the moment. That’s what they care about.
Not whether they’re sick or dead.
Or whether their loved ones are sick or dead.
3/ It’s nihilism. And it has taken root in our society.
We must grasp this, so that we can stop expending energy trying to get them to care.
They won’t.
They don’t.

I’ll share just one example, from within my own circle.

My daughter is an equestrian. Quite good, actually...
4/ And we had to stop her training at the barn she’s always known due to their lack of vigilance with Covid (she’s at a different barn now). But she’ll still mask up & go visit the horses she trained & loves.

Just before Christmas, we brought peppermints to the horses...
5/...& ran into her old trainer. A lovely young woman, who can not grasp why we are no longer at the barn - despite how well we’ve known each other (for years now).

She knows our reason, she believes Covid is real, yet - doesn’t understand why we’re reacting the way we have.
6/ It’s a “priority” thing - that’s the difference between us.

Regardless, we exchange our “Merry Christmas” greeting, and I ask her about her holiday. She takes a deep breath and says she’s flying home to be with her parents.

“I know it’s bad,” (meaning Covid spread), “but...
7/ “... I don’t want to be here. It’s Christmas.”

I ask her if it’s worth it, if this is then the last Christmas she ever has with them. Or any holiday, for that matter. What if they die?

“We talked about it, and it’s worth it.”

And with that, the line is drawn...
8/...between her version of humanity & mine.

I haven’t checked in w/ her since. Maybe she made it home & back w/o infecting herself or family. Even if she did, I’m certain she is unbothered in her spirit. She is sleeping fine.

And THAT worldview - that full embrace of nihilism
9/...on a mass scale, is what I have come to terms with.

I will not spend my time or energy trying to convince her or others to abandon their worldview. It’s a waste of my life. And to me, the breath in my lungs - my LIFE & the lives of my loved ones, are too precious to waste.

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The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹


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