By Robert Tosi
PROMPT — During COVID-19 ...
The cracks in our society have become rifts, the rifts have become chasms and the chasms, canyons. This is an earthquake of Biblical proportions and will be remembered as such. I am fifty-one and this may be the most seminal event to take place in my lifetime.
And yet, pandemics have occurred constantly throughout history. They are a regular part of life. Only three months ago, humans thought we’d outgrown them … Vaccines, antibiotics, technology. All these vast achievements gave us a sense of, well, immunity, to a dirty little secret of life: life plays dirty.
Nature does not fight fair. Nature seeks disadvantages and exploits them. In my lifetime, the disadvantages of humans have never been more on display than they are now: Rather than find an equitable path forward, our politicians bicker over dollars and cents (sense?); rather than share, we hoard; rather than seek unity, our citizens demonstrate against one another, faces twisted with a rage they no longer see as rage. Anger is the new normal. Our angry society has even declared war on COVID-19!
What we’ve failed to recognize is the cleansing power of nature. When She needs to clean, She does it with remorselessness. It’s harsh to think it, callus to say, but a virus has a purpose in nature: cull the herd. Our feelings tell us to ignore this dark thought, nay to shun it. We bastardize any who would utter it.
Our minds scream into the night, rebel from reality, shout “How can bad things happen to good people?” But we aren’t capable of knowing the answer to that question. Nor the answer to many, many more questions. COVID-19 reveals that fact with blunt, stark precision.
We are not immune to nature. We can not win a war against Her. Perhaps it’s a line in the sand that we’ve crossed and Nature is pushing us back?
Who knows?
Robert Tosi is 51 years old. Husband. Father of two. Real Estate Professional. Amateur philosopher, aspiring writer. Gardener. Capricorn. Prepper.