NO ONE CAN STOP YOU NOW

One of the things we do a lot of these days is play games with friends online, via Zoom or Facetime or whatever. Last night, I had a long dream where I was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of people I didn't know so well. They weren't anyone from this life. In the dream, I knew the way you know things in dreams that they were students, co-workers, and even a few strangers I was meeting for the first time. The entire dream was all of us arguing about the rules. And really minor ones, too. How many hit points can a troll regenerate each turn. How far a group of adventurers can go each day. Things like that. And it got really heated. Lots of name calling, questioning of integrity and intelligence, and screaming. It went on and on. Nobody seemed to be having any fun. Nobody was creating characters, or fighting orcs, or thinking up some funny action to do that would make the group laugh. We were just stuck. And that was the whole dream. And It went on so long, and was so annoying, it overshadowed the other dreams I had. Took center stage, if you will.

I think I had that dream because of all the back and forth between the folks who want to re-open right away, and the folks who want us to proceed with caution. Especially on social media. As bad as it was before, it is so much worse now. No listening to each other. No considering the other side. Just flat out statement of feelings, comments from like minded people, a few dissenters who then get attacked by people they've never met, and maybe a meme with a picture of someone doing something really stupid. There are the occasional nuggets of wisdom. And once in a blue moon, people make new connections, learn something they didn't already know, or even change their mind on something. But mostly, it seems like social media is a place to make proclamations.

So here is my proclamation. I don't think we only have two choices. I don't believe it is either re-open or stay inside. I think there are a myriad of other options, myriads of ways to deal with this global pandemic. We could change our way of doing business. We could install rent/mortgage forgiveness programs that make sure the landlords are taken care of too. We could start universal income. We could become communists. We could become anarchists. We could go back to being hunter/gatherers. We could become a real life version of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Or Logan's Run. Or Star Trek. The list is endless. Point being, it is not just "open" or "close". I don't think either of those options are even tenable. Open, right now, with no more pesky masks or social distancing or civil liberties being trampled on, and the virus eats us for dinner, the bodies pile up, and it's the end of the world as we know it. Close, completely, right now, and we'd see even more people on the steps of their capitols with signs about whatever it is they need, more people shooting each other in grocery stores, more poverty and hunger, and it's The Purge: Covid Night.

Seriously. We can't have any other options? We can't all put our heads together and figure something out? Some new way of governing or doing things or living that protects us from the greatest amount of harm while at the same time preserving our inalienable rights? I say we do. Change has come. No going back. Time to move forward. Enough with the freak outs, the screaming, the weeping, the gnashing of our collective teeth.

Time to kick it in the ass.

Here's a song. It's the great chunk of cheese that is Saga doing On the Loose. You're welcome.