2022: Letting go of Hope in the Third Year of the Covid-19 Pandemic
2022 was the year I let hope go. I know it sounds bleak, but hear me out. We all have expectations and goals and exercise our free will to affect the courses of our lives. In spite of our best efforts, there is only so much an individual swimming against the tide can do. Putting hope in other people, depending on them to do the right thing, has never worked out well for me. The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced this irrevocably in my mind. Nearly everyone has moved on and accepted the lie that the pandemic is “over,” even with the deadly truth of overrun hospitals and rapidly spreading variants staring us all in the face. I believe we owe each other a duty of care. Not enough people agree with that sentiment. This has always been true, and I’ve always known it to be true. Even so, I’ve been woefully naive about the scope of the problem.
I genuinely believed the watershed moment of the ongoing pandemic would spawn, if not a majority, at least a critical mass of people committed to wanting to prevent such widespread death and debility. I thought they would be enough of a bulwark. It’s been quite the waking nightmare to watch this ghoulish, deluded march “back to normal!” as waves of people are contracting multiple times a virus that can dysregulate the human immune system so much that Long Covid (the name given to lingering, serious…
