Hello loves.
I hope you all have been doing well and staying safe
amidst these times. To say that the past couple of months have been crazy is a
drastic understatement. Schools are closed, bars and restaurants once filled
with peoples laughter and conversation now silent, and hospitals are filling to
the brim with people seeking critical healthcare. One of the things I have been
doing a lot of, as I’m sure many of you are also doing, is constantly checking
the news, seeing the numbers, and starting to worry. Now, I’m no doctor or
scientist, so I won’t give my dear readers any false information or random
speculation, but a few words of advice in this trying time, I feel, are
helpful. This is some groundbreaking stuff, are you ready for this? Okay here we
go:
1.
Don’t go outside.
Seems
pretty self-explanatory, I know, but the best way to flatten the curve of
infection is just to stay in your house. I’m sure a lot of you who are reading
this are already in your home but STAY IN YOUR GODDAMN HOUSE. Nothing is more
important than your health, and more importantly, the risk you run of potentially
infecting someone if you are asymptomatic. Read a book, do some yoga, smoke a
blunt (assuming it’s legal). The quicker we realize we have to stay home, the
quicker we can leave our house. Let that serve as a mantra for the next few
weeks: Stay at home. Stay at home. STAY AT HOME. Otherwise, I’ll have no choice
but to personally come to your home (Hazmat suit on of course) and beat the
mantra into your thick, thick skull.
2.
Don’t make yourself paranoid.
When
I was first beginning to learn about this virus, I developed an anxiety over how
I may be at risk. I meet a lot of people on a daily basis, and in working in food
service as well as student service, I have a lot of close contact with people.
When I heard that the governor was shutting down schools and bars, I was
immediately worried about how much contact I have had with people, particularly
the elderly. It also didn’t help that in the days following the stay at home
order, I had immersed myself in learning as much as I could about the origin,
spread and lack of medical supplies that were available. My advice is to ease
up on news consumption. Don’t get rid of it completely, you don’t want to be
completely ignorant to what’s happening in the world, but make sure COVID-19
isn’t the only thing you’re talking about with people. If you are going to be
online, try to learn something new. I’ve been looking into video production and
psychoanalysis in the time I am not studying, and I can say now is the best
time to try out something new, if anything it will take your mind off of
things, and will help ease some of your newfound anxiety.
3.
Get organized.
As
much as I mean get organized by tidying up your home, I also mean start
building a stronger connection to your people. Undoubtably I can see that the
biggest groups affected by this disease have to be the houseless and the poor,
and not necessarily in regard to the chances of being infected. In the US, there
is a drastic difference in preparedness when it comes to the poor vs the rich.
A large majority of Americans have lost their job, but still have to worry
about providing food, paying loans or student debt, and paying for medical
supplies. That being said, banding together as a community to organize things
like food drives or rent strikes is key in letting your voice be heard, and
also empowering marginalized groups through unity. The best way to fight
rhetoric is with action, and now, given the showing of the fragility of the
system, is the best time to get everyone on the same page.
4.
Learning to change.
Arguably
the most difficult thing to accept, learning and accepting that life will never
be the same is essential in overcoming these tough times. Arguably, following
the initial peak of the spread, I speculate that social gatherings will be limited
regardless. It is going to take a while for things to settle back down, for the
anxiety to settle, and for all of us to move on. However, that should not take
away from the fact that we all will overcome this, and even if we lose people along
the way, we will lose them fighting for the life we want to live.
We will get though this,
and hopefully, we will come out of this better than we did coming in, and with
our eyes wide open to the injustices we truly face as a people.
Anyway, those are just a
few of the things I wanted to say to you, dear reader. I hope reading this was
not too much of a waste of time. In terms of what’s been going on with this
blog, I am working on making a video essay, as I want to spread our work across
multiple platforms, not just the blogging scene, so look out for that. I know I
have been absent for a while now, but I was just in a different place mentally,
so I needed to take some time to get back on track. I got some work coming at
you soon, so stay tuned and stay safe.
Love yall,
Rodolfo Perez
