Astronaut On Earth (If I’m Brave Enough)
Part 1: The Measure Of A Life
Reb Simcha Bunim, a Hasidic rabbi born around 1765, supposedly carried two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One contained a saying from the Talmud: “For my sake the world was created.” The other had a quote from the biblical Abraham: “I am but dust and ashes.” I’ve heard that he took out the appropriate piece of paper at various times, depending on the situation.
My take on this is immediate and intuitive. “For my sake the world was created.” Yes! “I am but dust and ashes.” Absolutely not. Never. Not ever.
There’s no arrogance here. I also believe the world was created for your sake. And everyone else’s. If reality works the way I hope it does—and that’s the only situation I can accept, so I’m going with it—this world can cater intricately to me, and to you, and to everyone else. It may seem much more to one person’s liking than another’s, but the disappointed person might need to grow and learn and figure out how to work around everything that seems bleak. The more they manage to do this, the higher they rise. Their ingenuity and emotions can soar into realms they’d never have known if all had seemed perfect, and they’d never had to fight.
My grandmother used to say: “Nothing worthwhile comes easy.” It was an upsetting notion, especially for someone like me. I’ve always hated tasks and pursuits that don’t come easily to me. When people talk about their love for running—the adrenaline rush, the orgasmic feeling that comes from pushing, panting, and sweating for miles until you reach your goal and exult—I always have the same thought: Vomit. Once, when I was a kid, I ran for quite a while with my neighbors, and my vomiting session afterwards was the best part of that night. At least I wasn’t running anymore. At least I could get that grinding ache in my side out of my system and into the toilet. No joy. No exultation. For decades, I never ran again unless I was forced.
So why am I soaringly optimistic about overcoming challenges now that many years have passed? My mother often says that, when pressed against a wall, I come through, despite my laziness and apparent unwillingness to do anything not to my liking. If my success or my job or my basic well-being depends on it, I’ll drag myself up and do it. At this point, I haven’t merely been pressed against a wall. I’ve been stuffed into a hole and pounded into it with the heavy boots of nearly everyone, whether I know them or not.
What’s at stake is… life shattering. I have an enormous problem right now. I’ve been behaving as if I am one step away from dust and ashes: very vulnerable, unable to take in the world except through a keyhole, on the other side of everything. I’ve been avoiding the world that was created for me. And with good reason. Despite popular belief, Covid still rages, still wreaks havoc on brains and hearts, still causes blood clots and strokes, still creates a lasting cascade of inflammation throughout the body. Yes, even with cases that seemed very mild throughout the infection stage.
At least twice a week, I Google around, imploring the universe to shower me with good news about the current situation. I keep my searches neutral, open to the good or the bad. “Covid today.” That kind of thing. Somehow, I nearly always discover bad tidings. Many prominent oncologists see increasing evidence that Covid infections frequently spark cancer down the line. IQ scores tend to drop after Covid infections resolve, compared to pre-Covid results. Covid seems to spark diabetes down the line. Many people are still dying; I just attended an online memorial event for a woman in my circles who died directly of Covid.
Several of my previously healthy, youngish friends are struggling mightily with long Covid. They battle searing fatigue, lung disease, shortness of breath, inability to concentrate, severe hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and my most dreaded Covid symptom that sometimes becomes long term: loss of smell and taste. Loss of smell and taste! I go to bed thinking about food; I dream about food; I wake up thinking about food. I can’t let that happen to me.
The risk of these problems is substantial with each infection. As Douglas C. Wallace, a University of Pennsylvania geneticist and evolutionary biologist, explained in the June 6, 2024 Washington Post: “The effects of repeatedly getting this throughout our lives [are] going to be much more significant than people are thinking.”
I’m still worried. I still work hard to avoid infection. So far, knock on wood, kenahora (a Jewish expression meaning “no evil eye intended”) I’ve avoided it, unlike the overwhelming majority of people I know.
And yet… what is the measure of a life? Do I want my remaining years (which I hope are very plentiful and filled with pleasure and success) to focus most centrally on avoiding a communicable disease?
I miss adventures. I miss popping into weird stores and seeing who and what I might find. Since Covid hit, I’ve watched countless videos about airline flights and international journeys, often spotlighting simple things like exploring a quaint neighborhood and savoring street foods with unfamiliar, tantalizing sauces, ingredients, and presentations. I haven’t been on public transportation since 2020, and I don’t drive. My feet can only go so far. Most of the best things don’t happen outside in uncrowded surroundings, within walking distance of my home.
A big part of what I miss: people. I’ve been alone at least 95% of the time since 2020. Occasionally, I meet with friends outside (I mask, in case they or someone else comes close; I know people who have caught Covid outside even though the odds plummet compared to indoor activities). I’ve visited my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephews, hiring a private van to take me from Massachusetts to New Jersey and back. It’s been a once-per-year adventure, and I slide fairly easily into unmasking with my parents in their house and visiting with my other family members outside. It’s risky. In the old days when most I knew were being careful, people tended to get Covid eventually from their close family members. Someone can love you and wish more for you than even a world created just for you… and still get you sick, or get sick from you. But, every year for about two weeks, I’ve been doing it. Because what is the measure of my life if it doesn’t include the people who created me? My parents are still much more careful than most, and I just have to hope that it will all be OK.
Back in my own home city, I have frequent grand adventures: picking up takeout at local restaurants. I call them from outside, and they bring my order to me so I don’t have to enter the indoor hotbed of germs. They smile and tell me to enjoy my food. My area of Cambridge, MA, is fairly well stocked restaurant wise, so I have a pretty good variety of choices: tapas, Eritrean, Thai, Chinese, Italian, sushi, ramen, New England seafood, bar food, diner food, upscale American, Mexican, Jewish deli, and much more. I try to leave a meaningful tip when I order, and the restaurant people are almost always happy to accommodate me.
It’s nice, but is it enough? Part of me thinks so. I’m down on people. When I see another human in my apartment building’s public spaces, I turn my head and run. I have not given up so much only to get infected by some random neighbor, even if it’s someone I used to chat with all the time. Covid is hyper-transmissible, and exceptions breed infections.
I used to be open to nearly everyone. Only mean people fell beyond my pale. I talked to communists; socialists; Republicans; libertarians; anarchists; Christian fundamentalists; Hasidic Jews; trans, gay, and nonbinary activists; afficionados of the traditional nuclear family… and so many whose ideas could never be contained within an existing rubric. In my university teaching, I encouraged debate among people who might have wanted to kill each other, while asking that they be receptive and try to take something valuable from everyone, no matter how much they bristled at someone’s thoughts. On social media, I posted open-ended, potentially incendiary tidings and steered things as my ideologically disparate friends discussed and debated.
I learned and grew from everyone’s ideas. Really: I’m not just being hokey and sickeningly positive. I prided myself on having an expansive mindset. If you shared your views with me, I listened and let my mental wheels turn and take off. I might have argued, but, if you argued back, I considered your take. “Every mind is a universe. Respect every universe that comes your way in this class, no matter how vehemently you think you disagree,” I told my students. I could feel them turning the concept over in their heads. I felt like an evangelist of glorious open-mindedness.
I’m still open-minded, but not about Covid. I so miss my universal openness, but, when it comes to Covid, I simply can’t feel it. Why? The in-your-face, immediate interconnectedness of it all horrifies me. If, say, you believe that I should pay exorbitant income taxes because I’m not married and don’t have children, I’ll be deeply offended, but I can listen to your point of view with no ill effects. Maybe your belief stems from a religious philosophy that I’d find interesting or from research on marriage and traditional family units. There would be no harm in meeting and discussing it all. I mean… unless you have Covid, or some other damaging communicable illness. Communicable illness brings immediate danger into my interactions. I can handle feeling offended or bristling at your ideas, but there is pretty much no universe in which the thrill or bracing challenge of our conversation would be worth losing my health or my life… let alone my ability to enjoy food.
So many friends and family members get angry—even rageful—when I mention Covid. I have to bury it when I interact with others. Do I want fake friendships, or do I prefer to be on my own all the time? It’s not like avoiding the subject of politics or some such. This is every minute of my life, whenever I leave home… and even at home, since I live in an apartment and I know people in other buildings who are certain they got infected through their apartment walls from nearby units. This is whenever I inhale. My air purifiers constantly hum: a reminder that my neighbors’ breath lurks and floats.
My conversations with friends have become acting exercises. When talking to them, I am a simulacrum of myself: an almost-Stephanie who tells them their party or their vacation sounds fabulous, without bringing up my heartbreak that these events close out anyone who wants or needs to avoid getting sick. Mention that transplant recipients and cancer patients are now in a constant danger zone because so few are masking, testing, staying home when sick, or boosting air quality, and I’m crazy. Mention that I personally feel closed out because I’m not ready to get Covid again and again, and I’m a poorly adjusted, pitiable loner. Suggest that people wear an N95 mask to protect their own health and others’ while going wherever they want, and I’m insensitive and nonempathetic towards mental health needs. Even when my conversation partner knows that Covid is still everywhere and still very dangerous.
When I told a friend that all the non-maskers at the mall made me feel unable to enter, she took it badly. “That’s me. That’s us. That’s everyone, pretty much. I can’t talk to you about this subject if you’re going to tell me that I’m the reason you can’t go to the mall.” Once, those unconcerned about spreading viral disease were pariahs in my communities. Now, those who are concerned inspire rage.
In a way, I get it. Several years ago, a friend described a mutual acquaintance as being “a marginal person on the edge of society.” This was long before Covid; my friend was reacting to our acquaintance’s take on relationships, family, lifestyle, and social media engagement. “I can’t believe she posts that stuff,” my friend said. “It’s so out there. You’d think she’d be embarrassed.”
Our acquaintance was in no way dangerous. She had found a quirky kind of joy. Many more people than I would have expected resonated with her life approach. But she was far beyond the mainstream, and my friend couldn’t get past that. I’ve always had a somewhat unusual approach to life, and I nervously asked my friend whether I was also a marginal person on the edge of society. “Oh, no, of course not. You’re weird, but you participate in society in your own way. She’s in her own dimension.”
Well, I think I’ve entered my own dimension. Plenty of others share space with me there, more or less—there are many large, thriving online and regional communities of people continuing to avoid Covid to the extent they possibly can. But most of my friends and family members have moved on. I’m not just beyond; I’m beyond beyond.
I’m hurt. I seethe at the way humanity has moved and shifted since Covid hit. I remember the time when nearly everyone in my circles was a shiningly good citizen, willing to mask for the sake of others. “I’m not worried about myself,” said nearly all my friends, regardless of their age or the state of their health, “but I’m worried about all the vulnerable people.” I was gobsmacked, since, for me, Covid was always first and foremost about myself. I was healthy as far as I could tell, and I very much wanted to keep it that way. But I was also deeply moved and impressed by how much people seemed to care about their fellow humans.
That concern is over. In an amazing demonstration of just how interconnected we all are, once the Biden administration declared the public health emergency over in May, 2023, all remaining caring seemed to collapse in the USA. Covid still festered and caused great damage, but our government managed to define it out of most people’s awareness and declare victory over it. World-renowned hospitals quoted the CDC when justifying the end of mask requirements in healthcare, even when working with severely vulnerable populations like metastatic cancer patients, the elderly, and people with serious immune dysfunction. N95 masks could have protected the lives and the health of their patients—and themselves—but they were too busy relishing the ability to work barefaced to care. For those interested in studies, I found this one helpful re: understanding how masking can protect those around us. No study is perfect, but this one sure gives an overall sense for the tragedy of relinquishing an easy, cheap method of curbing the spread of disease.
I began hearing more and more stories of people getting Covid at hospitals and medical appointments, often with disastrous lingering effects. Those of us who still want to avoid this disease must juggle our various concerns and worries when deciding how to handle our care. Is the high risk of infection worth it to get a mammogram? How about a colonoscopy? Am I more worried about the possibility of having cancer now… or about a Covid infection sparking increased tendency towards cancer down the road, like many specialists suspect is happening much more often than anyone would hope (see Ariana Eunjung Cha’s June 6, 2024 article in The Washington Post).
I’ve been getting my screenings, after calling offices and begging those working with me to mask while with me. So far, my pleading has worked, though the providers typically eschew N95s and don much less effective surgical masks. I avoid waiting rooms with their cacophony of coughing and sneezing and stand in the hall until I’m called. Unmasked faces glare at me through the glass as I wait. I turn around so I’m not looking inside.
I hate people. But I don’t want to feel this way.
And now telehealth—that wondrous innovation allowing remote appointments with medical providers—is in jeopardy here in the USA. Telehealth has been a lifeline for me: I’ve gotten much-needed care while keeping myself safe. I know many others whose physical and mental wellbeing hinges on telehealth. In a horrible irony, concern for health will force many of our most vulnerable citizens to abandon healthcare if telehealth is eliminated.
I still remember the first time I learned about Darwinism. The cold randomness of it all made me cry. I was so grateful that humans, at least, cared for their weakest members and didn’t let them die.
I’m trying so hard to recall why I made that assumption. It could be key to my healing.
Part 2: Consensus Reality
Years ago, at a spiritually oriented program, one of the leaders shared his ideas about the interrelationship of human minds. Like some physicists who have studied relevant issues, he believed that consciousness creates reality—both external and internal, both physical and mental. I asked how this was possible with so many active consciousnesses around the world. He and I were inhabiting a reality that overlapped enough that we could stand in the same room, see the same things, and look towards the same future activities. People far beyond our small corner of the planet agreed with us on basic aspects of existence: the date, the year, the fact that the sun and clouds exist, the fact that living creatures were born and later died. Some love this world. Others feel out of place. We’re each unique in values, perceptions, and tastes. How could all of us be working together to create all that is?
He answered easily, casually, as if I had asked him to share his favorite toothpaste brand: “Consensus reality.” I dream up my world. You dream up yours. People everywhere dream up theirs. On one level, it’s all individual. On another, we’re all working together, though we don’t realize it—a subconscious but intricate symphony of ideas, drives, desires, and emotions. I craft my piece; you craft yours; others all around the world craft theirs. Somehow, through the wonder of communal reality weaving, it all comes together.
My toes tingled when I started to understand. I felt a more alive body moving beyond the body I’d always known. Bizarre as this may seem, I felt in my bones—and far beyond them—that what he said was true.
During the days when most acknowledged Covid’s dangers, I remembered this conversation, furious that all our consciousnesses had somehow cooked up this pandemic. And yet… I sensed an angle that would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so horrific. Everyone throughout our planet was touched by this pandemic. It was amazing to realize that anyone I’d ever seen or known anywhere I’d been around the world was affected somehow. The royal family I’d glimpsed in Ubud, Bali; the Dubai taxi driver who wanted to take me to a hospital instead of my hotel because I was coughing so hard from a virus I’d caught; my friends from elementary school in Mountainside, NJ… absolutely everyone with basic awareness of their communities knew about Covid, had opinions about it, had been affected somehow.
From a consensus reality standpoint, the situation now, in 2024, is eerie. Our minds are all keeping this disease alive, but most no longer see it with conscious eyes. Somehow, this is the situation that humans have agreed upon. It’s enough to make me want to stay home alone and never engage with anyone else ever again except out of stark necessity. I beam out all the mental energy I can muster towards eliminating this disease and others, but most no longer care enough to help.
In the early days of the pandemic, I felt a wonderful together aloneness. Friends and family jumped onto Zoom, eager to talk. I was in my home and you were in yours, but our eyes met, we smiled at each other, maybe we yelled at each other too. We were thrilled to connect through the boundaries we all faced and acknowledged.
Now, the overarching consensus dictates that life should operate as if Covid and other communicable diseases barely exist. I’d hoped this pandemic would wise us all up to the dangers of communicable disease in general. I had fantasies of air purification and ventilation in public spaces—very achievable goals if enough people cared about them. Instead, I sense widespread animosity towards concern over infectious illness. The consensus has rebounded and landed in a hostile place.
So, I’m in a spot: a deep one. Many I know in my “Still Coviding” online groups have decided to avoid the world as much as possible. But this world was created for me! I am not dust and ashes… and never will be!
I find myself Googling trips to intriguing locales, watching YouTubers as they duck into Pakistani eateries and Singaporean markets. I, too, could get on a plane and have those adventures. I was planning to before Covid hit. I had recently reached a point in my life where I felt free to move and grow and take in the world… and then the world became a viral danger zone. But this is the world we have. I can’t get on a spaceship and escape to a safe realm.
The pandemic era introduced many fabulous pleasures I never would have had if Covid hadn’t hit. I subscribe to streaming services for the first time because my brother gave me some short-term gifts, thinking this was a form of entertainment I could access as Covid raged. Over a decade after everyone else, I marveled at the magic of choosing among hundreds of shows and films and watching whenever I wanted, at whatever pace. I learned to cook just a bit. I now know the miracle of an egg frying in a pan, seasoned just as I like it with sea salt and pepper, yolk glistening in the center. I used to eat every single meal in a restaurant, never dreaming that another option might bring its own wonders.
I haven’t given up anything earthshattering… yet. So far, it’s been its own bizarre journey. But time keeps moving, and I want a shift.
During before-Covid adventures with cultures that were foreign to me, I never expected to change people’s lives. Indonesia didn’t start embracing synagogues in their midst because I was visiting their beautiful island of Bali. During that same summer, my visit did not spark the UAE to end its policy to allow men but not women to have multiple spouses… or its illegalization of open homosexuality. If I was curious enough to go, I had to move in people’s midst without fighting their beliefs and habits.
So now I’m thinking: Maybe the whole world is a deeply alien culture—a dangerous but fascinating place that I can explore as a tourist. I’ve kept myself apart for so long; maybe it’s time to… jump back in is too strong. Put a pinky in, perhaps, as a start? The ultimate goal is a lively, active, fear-free life filled with fun, new and old friends, and the kind of random, fascinating conversations I used to enjoy as I roamed around various cities.
OK, let’s be real. I never had a fear-free life filled with fun. At the absolute best of times, I had inklings of fun, and fear receded just enough for me to laugh and really mean it… or focus on some fascinating person, belief, or activity. That might not sound fabulous to truly fun souls, but I miss it.
And… maybe I’ll reach new heights that I never had access to before. I’ve spent the past few years terrified of humans—all of them, even the ones I love. I’ve been pushed against a wall of alienation. I wake up scanning the days and years ahead and can’t imagine how I’ll ever shift back to simple things like indoor shopping and birthday parties if I’m not OK with getting Covid. I feel an urgency I never felt before as I ask myself why I’m alive and how I’m supposed to live out my belief that the universe was created for me when I fear 99% of in-person life. If I push back into the world, I suspect I’ll see it from a new perspective: embattled and marginal but, at the same time, exhilarated by a newness I never could have known if I hadn’t held myself apart for so long. The delight of finding white chocolate covered strawberries at the supermarket or the perfect sandals at the shoe store will feel like discovering some sublime new island where I can frolic alone forever.
Wait, no. The point is that, ultimately, I don’t want to be alone on an island forever. But clearly this is a hard shift. I’m still scared, still furious at the world for not coalescing in a deep, beautiful effort to protect us all.
Thing is, I still really, really don’t want Covid. Can I have my cake and eat it too? Unfortunately, I don’t see myself eating cake in public any time soon. But maybe I’ll be able to watch you eat cake while I refrain, wearing my super-protective helmet. I’ll buy some cake for myself, for later, when I can be alone.
I’ve discovered devices known as PAPRs (powered air purifying respirators). An N95 mask will filter at least 95% of infectious particles, assuming proper fit. But, as a few knowledgeable friends have pointed out, 5% of a very big number is a big number. With Covid raging and very few masking or taking other precautions, the numbers can be hazardous despite my N95, which offers strong but incomplete protection in this environment. A PAPR might filter 99.97% of these particles and doesn’t depend on fit. Devices can always fail to do what they’re rated to do, but a Niosh-rated PAPR with strong reviews is likely trustworthy.
There are many kinds of PAPRs, and they’d all make me look like a freak. One of my favorite possibilities looks like an astronaut helmet, but it’s not out yet. Another strong contender looks like a bike helmet with a giant shield in front. Others remind me of hazmat suits and come with bulky tubes that wearers must lug on their backs. Can I rejoin the social world in bizarre-looking headgear that is clearly designed to protect me from my friends’ and family’s breath? Will people be happy to see me if they’re savoring the mini quiches and I’m packed into my helmet with no access to my mouth?
My face would be visible in a PAPR, and that thrills me, since I’d wondered whether anyone other than my closest family members and absolutely necessary dentists and doctors would ever see my in-person face again. But people are familiar with masks. My usual contacts don’t tend to harass mask wearers, though they’ll silently snicker at the perceived absurdity. An astronaut helmet at the birthday party? If I sense animosity once, will I continue going to parties? Will I even have the option, or will people stop inviting me? (They’ve already stopped, but I was hoping to reintroduce myself to the world I used to know.)
It will probably be a long while before I’d attend the crowded indoor gathering, even with the PAPR. I’ll likely start slow: the supermarket at off hours (I get all my food and other purchases brought outside or delivered now), a quiet little clothing store (though shirts will be a problem since I won’t remove the PAPR).
I’ve been talking about PAPRs for a while but still haven’t bought one. Part of me is waiting for a particular kind to come out. Part of me has been busy figuring out other new equipment (if I have one new piece of equipment in my life, I can’t handle any more). And part of me is… resisting. If the PAPR fails me—if it’s very uncomfortable, feels unwearable, or allows me to get sick—my holy grail will disappear, and I’ll lose my optimism for upcoming safe adventures. I do know many who trust them fully and have not gotten sick. There’s a whole community of Covid-conscious PAPR wearers. By most standards, they are marginal people on the edge of society. Am I ready to join them… and to move back into the world somewhat, on my own terms?
It may take a while, but I will do it. And when I do, I’ll be looking out for reactions. The human world is one big social psychology experiment. It was created for me. And for you. Can we come together again?
As I write, Covid is surging. More and more of my friends and family members seem to be picking it up this summer. The President himself has it. In the grand American fashion that he and others in our government inaugurated, he has appeared maskless, in close proximity to aides and others, while sick. You likely think I’m crazed for noticing or caring… and that makes me angry.
We’ve reached the point where mask bans threaten to return in various areas around the U.S. Lawmakers supporting the bans claim that they won’t threaten medical masking, but how will anyone know whether a stranger is masking to steal or to survive? These bans have already passed in North Carolina. Maskers report hostility and harassment from others who claim they’re breaking the law, pushing those who need to protect their health into deeper alienation from the prevailing social world. They’ve also been asked to unmask briefly to verify identity, endangering their protection from a disease that can infect very quickly.
The PAPRs I’m considering would not hide my identity. They would show my face. I hope I can get away with wearing one everywhere throughout this crazy planet.
I want to love people again… or even like them. Even in my isolated state, I see so much good along with the bad. A few weeks ago, I bought a few items in a local supermarket. I’d called in advance to plan an outdoor pickup, and a grinning young woman brought my purchases outside. While I waited, several people entered the store. I stood there, in my N95 and safety glasses, watching. Every single person looked at me and held the door for me even though I was standing a good distance from the entrance. “Do you want to go in? I’ll hold the door for you,” an older man said. Others entering at the same time turned towards me and smiled.
They could tell I was looking into the store and feeling unable to enter. Probably, they saw my medical gear and imagined a situation that I so hope will never be accurate. And they thought they could help by opening the door for me, never dreaming that their very presence was the problem. They wanted to be there for me. They were beyond imagining that I was upset because the supermarket was no longer a place of communal care about disease, with people in masks keeping a distance from each other. To them, that was a different era. Every one of them gave me a sense of kindness. I wished I could connect with them like I so often used to with strangers in public places.
Part 3: Soaring Optimism… And Dread
Now back to soaring optimism… and dread. My life before Covid was relatively easy, as lives go. I suffered from deep anguish over the basics of human existence: time passing, the possibility of disease, inevitable aging, and death. Even seemingly minor things often revved up my anxiety. If I had any task to complete soon, I felt stressed and oppressed. But all my needs and many of my wants were fulfilled, and without a huge amount of effort on my part. I hadn’t suffered anything that most would consider a tragedy. Life went along easily in many key ways. But I was in a rut even then. I would have loved some shining adventure to come my way.
And now… here it is? What if I bought a PAPR and reentered the world but as an alien from another dimension? That’s how I see it, so maybe I should fly with that idea. The supermarket with its vast array of food and other goods will feel like a paradise when I allow myself to partake. I can pick my own carton of raspberries and my own piece of chicken from the deli counter. I’ll reclaim the magic kids have when they’re allowed to do things on their own for the first time.
Social gatherings will seem to teem with fabulous life: a sea change from seeing a few people at a time at most, outside and from a bit of a distance. If I truly feel protected, I won’t fear people anymore. I’ll be able to see their goodness again, to appreciate their thoughts and friendliness in three dimensions and not just through a screen. In the pre-Covid days, I felt skittish when someone showed signs of a virus, though I handled it by simply sidling away and not worrying all that much. In my PAPR, if all goes as well as I’m hoping, I won’t even have to avoid the person who coughed or sneezed. I will connect with a fearlessness I’ve never known before.
And travel! I’ve watched so many travel videos during this time, but what will it be like to get on a plane for the first time since Covid hit? If I truly trust my PAPR, I’ll look out the window and realize I’m soaring hundreds of times faster than my feet could ever take me. After relying solely on my feet to get around for so many years, it will feel miraculous. When I reach my destination, I’ll chat with anyone willing, explore the markets, indulge in foods with fabulous new flavors. After feeling locked at home for years, it will bring a sense of expansion far beyond what I’ve known in the past. It will be like emerging from Plato’s cave, finally able to experience life around the world in three dimensions.
But wait. It will not be easy, and I have a terrible time with logistical challenges. I won’t be able to pop into restaurants and cafes like the old days, since I can’t eat or drink while protected. If someone invites me to a gathering centered on food, I’ll have to decline… or show up and refrain. I won’t slip into gatherings and look unremarkable: I’ll be wearing a helmet that blows air onto my face.
People will either ask about the helmet or not. If they don’t, it will likely be because they’ll assume I’m wearing it for a very personal reason rooted in a profound problem. I’ve always enjoyed being alone in a crowd, but I also love and crave connection with other people. If I go around in my PAPR, will I be locked in a lonely cocoon: an immediate outcast regardless of what I say or do?
The old days will not be here. Will the new days be exhilarating or depressing? I imagine they will bring some of each. I also imagine that the entire experience will push me in ways I never would have seen if Covid had never arrived. I’ll be going through life from a vantage point of stark, immediate difference. I’ll hold myself apart in an obvious way while reaching out, hoping for the wonder of friendship and communing in person with other minds, hearts, and souls.
It won’t be the life I would have had if Covid had never arrived. But I was feeling stuck even then. There’s no doubt that I will see, think, and feel many new things as I try to reconnect with this world on my own terms.
I’ve heard many stories of extreme experiences catapulting people to profound new insights and even reshaped views of reality—physical and spiritual. Humans often grow most gloriously when they’re pushed against a wall and, after fighting and trauma, find a way to separate from the wall and head into a new existence.
I hope for that. And in a world where consciousness creates the universe, hope begets truth.
Conversation
Join the Conversation
Discussion hosted at InfiniteConversations.com