You know we’ve reached a monumental moment in history when we are afforded the luxury of stupidity. The ability to be completely and gleefully uninformed on an epic scale. This is the moment we find ourselves in today. We’ve suffered through a harrowing epidemic for a year and half. Hundreds of thousands dead, countless more profoundly affected in ways we won’t know for many years. A world turned upside down. We’ve hunkered down behind closed doors, afraid to go outside, anxious of being in close proximity to neighbors, staring out the window and wondering when and if it will all end. Now, miraculously there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. We have enough vaccine doses for every adult in the America, available on demand at your local pharmacy. It’s free of charge and highly effective against all forms of the virus. But many among us don’t want it. Can’t be bothered. Don’t care about how their actions affect the rest of their community. A selfishness borne of stupidity and rationalized as freedom. A giant slice of our country more convinced of their gut instincts than experts with well informed opinions. Ideas that conform to preset sides of illogical culture war issues.
Consider how we look to someone from a less privileged country. A place that isn’t quite as far into the looking glass of capitalism and hegemony. We are a people with such abundance of choice in so many things that everything is never enough. We have the will and power to freely spread a disease lest it infringe upon our notions of liberty. Billions across the world would walk across burning coals for a chance at the privilege we enjoy, but we don’t care. It’s an amazing phenomenon to witness. Kind of breathtaking actually, in more ways than one.
