There are a lot of people pretty panicked by the prospect of the Corona Virus or Covid-19, but it doesn't really phase me. The trick to remaining calm under these kinds of global pandemics is simple - don't watch the news.
I have been an avid news non-watcher for a long time and I feel that I am much better off for it, even though I am not generally one of the most reactive to hype types anyway. Yeah, I know, I should be really worried about catching the flu, but I am just not. Perhaps it is because the treatment I get already weakens my immune system and I have had a flu since November, so if I do get some killer flu - there likely isn't much hope.
But, my news non-watching isn't what I was going to write about directly, rather it was about a conversation with a client the other day about the Corona virus. The company I was working at has pulled back employees from China and they are in a 2-3 week quarantine period at home. I really do not know how effective that is considring their kids are still going to school.
Yet, it was something she said that I found amusing, and I wonder at what point this shift happened. When I said I wasn't concerned, she noted that she was worried about her parents as they were 89 and 91 years of age and if they got Corona it would likely kill them. Yes, maybe. But, is it an untimely death?
Since I am more tactful in conversation than in writing, I investigated this a little and noted that not too many generations ago, living to that age would have been considered an achievement in itself, yet now we expect that people should live on even longer. Not only that, we think that it is normal and universal, yet there are many places on earth where the life expectancy is still much like it was back those few generations ago.
I have a friend who lost her grandmother a few months ago and she was very upset, because she feels that if she had been there, she could have done something and called an ambulance to get her help so she could live. She was turning 90 or 95 or something.
At what point did the change happen that we expect people to live forever?
But it is not only that. My client was telling that in her grandmother's family there were nine children, but four died during childhood. This is another thing that at least in the western world we have seemed to forgotten, child mortality is a thing due to problems like viruses, as well as many other issues. They say that the worst thing is for a parent to lose a child, but what isn't actually that long ago in the western world and still very common in many parts of the world is, parents are quite likely to lose multiple children.
If anything is an indicator of the progress we made, perhaps it is the expectation that we are entitled to live to very old age and we have created a society where it is common place. Again, I know that this isn't the case everywhere for many reasons, but in Finland where there is available healthcare and a relatively safe community, it is common to the point that we blame doctors for not being able to save a ninety something year old from heart failure.
Of course, I understand none of us want to lose the ones we care about the most in this world, but I also wonder if we are losing the understanding of the circle of life and as a result, become less able to cope with it when it happens. The next question is, do we value life more because we see less death, or less because we expect we are going to live quite long lives? Does it change the way we live our days?
I think that when it comes to value, scarcity matters and perhaps we would value our lives more if we understood how short they really are, whether it be thirty years or eighty. A lot of people when they are young believe they have a lot of life ahead, but I notice that people older than myself say things to me like "you have plenty of time, you are young" - and I am 40+ and definitely don't feel like I have plenty of time ahead. How long and how well do people expect to live these days?
My views on this might also be driven by my early-onset chronic illness that made me come to terms with my own mortality as a teen and accept that I am unlikely to live long and prosper. Well, if I am lucky, I might get that prosper part if things go extremely well with crypto. Yet, the "live long" part isn't likely. What I am more concerned with at the moment is more the idea of quality of life - living well over long.
This will mean different things to different people, but I don't think surviving into old age just so I can sit in a rocking chair and listen to the news is what I would consider a valuable life for myself. But again, I might have a skewed view of this because I am someone who values working - something I consider vital for a well-lived life. Of course, that work has to be meaningful.
And I guess this is where I will wrap it up and leave it for the night. What is the meaning of your life? Now this might seem a big question, but should it be? If you haven't explored it for yourself, how do you know you are acting toward your meaning? And if you think life is meaningless, why do you do the things you do and consider them important enough to do?
I wonder how many people believe that the core meaning of their life is to live as long as possible. And while I am not old enough to reflect upon this perhaps, if I ever did make it to that age, would I look back and consider that the life I lived had value, and if it did - why?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
