Like Charlie Brown lining up to kick the football after so many repeated failures with mischievous Lucy as his holder, we have great hope that this time after several false starts; perhaps we are finally getting over the surreal hump of COVID-19. But with over 2.5-billion people worldwide still unvaccinated, it‘s premature to declare victory just yet.
But we have hope, and perhaps a light at the end of our hunker-down bubble locally. So let’s get rid of gnawing rudeness and “me” first. Let’s start reducing the angst that understandably built up with two years of fear, uncertainty, whack-a-mole rules, starts and stops, dos and don’ts, Safe Travels, don’t travels, etc.? PTSD can be treated communally.
While we don’t hear many stories about COVIDiots locally, we do hear of people behaving badly on planes, in restaurants and stores, and just about any location where human interaction (a practice frowned upon not long ago) occurs. Let’s calmly get back to being the Aloha State after spending far too long in an alone state.
We can consciously appreciate what we’ve got here, now that the waters are receding, the winds have died down, and the storm appears to be dissipating. We used to think a huge natural disaster might get us- hurricane, tsunami, volcanic eruption or earthquake- yet this time ‘twas but a tiny bug, plus earthlings’ chutzpah and intransigence.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times said it well two weeks ago when he wrote “How is it that we have morphed into a country where people claim endless ‘rights’ while fewer and fewer believe they have any ‘responsibilities’”? But have we simply morphed? We’ve regressed and atrophied; our souls have surely sagged on many issues for many reasons. We live in an era where everyone (who are often no-ones) gets 15-minutes of digital fame, where we strive to be liked, clicked on, befriended, and must take incessant selfies to prove… well, I’m still not sure what.
As COVID fades (alas, it won’t disappear), let’s be different and be first in line as we display a heaping bowl of tolerance, empathy, and civil discourse. We won’t always agree- frankly, we never did on lots of things- but let’s reign in the useless ugliness that pervades far too many facets of far too many lives. Maybe local residents saying “lucky you live Hawai`i” will actually employ that sentiment going forward.
Think about it…