Here comes your Covid 19 Breakdown.

“More than 21 percent of roughly 1,300 New York City residents tested as part of a state study had antibodies linked to COVID-19, Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed Thursday during a press conference.”*

(The Gothamist 4/23/2020)

5 to 1, baby,

1 in 5,

Nobody here gets out alive

(The Doors)

To be in Hell is to be in a strange land and that strange land is your own soul, a soul governed by anger and fear, and I don’t know what other wild beasts, a state governed by Paranoia.

What is this name “Paranoia?” Paranoia, who are you?

Paranoia is by my side. We wander side by side in this wilderness, beside ourselves, the mind beside itself, deceiving itself, projecting fear and not recognizing the projections, like the prisoners of the Cave.

I don't know what to do with my anger. You can't storm the White House in a pandemic.

You can’t take it to the streets, or you shouldn’t take it to the streets, but some of our brothers and sisters try. They are carrying guns, as if they can shoot the virus with their automatic sporting rifles and handguns. They are also angry and they are very confused. They are being lied to, but they can’t figure out who is lying and who isn’t. They know they are being deceived but not that they are deceiving themselves. Their minds are beside themselves, not recognizing themselves. They are heavily armed against creatures of their own terrified imaginations, the monsters that hide under their beds at night. They don’t want to be isolated, they don’t want to be prisoners of their own homes, alone with those they fear the most, themselves and their families, but mostly themselves. 

When the shit comes down they will be prepared to kill their neighbors, their own families, and then themselves.

Good riddance. Thin the herd. Natural selection.

Wait, did you miss the part about killing their neighbors, their families? 

We are their neighbors and they are our families, even though they are so strange. They have strange beliefs, strange angry gods. They are tormented by hungry ghosts. Their weapons are useless.

Anyway, who are you angry at? Who is the enemy? 

No. Not him.

Who or what is the real enemy?

How do you introduce someone to their own self? How do you change a broken mind? How do you change your own broken mind? How do you learn to recognize yourself, to accept yourself, so you can live with yourself, and be alone with yourself in your own home, and know that you have all that you really need?

We need to become intelligent.

Yes, we need intelligence.

21% of those tested tested positive, but it was a meaningless test, not a rigorous test, because they only tested customers in supermarkets and big box stores, not those of us staying inside.

Last night I dreamed I was walking on a busy street, carrying two shopping bags and I realize I’m not wearing a mask and I’m exposed, we’re all exposed.

The Associated Press reports:

“Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.”

Again, not a rigorous test, but they fed Dear Leader’s magic pill to the guinea pigs, not the first time veterans were guinea pigs used to test some President’s theory of reality. His propagandists have stopped selling his magic pill. They’d rather we forget this incident, and we will.

We need to be capable of sorting through the data we are given, sifting out the reliable information from the unreliable information, because deception is the worst virus of all, and we are all susceptible.

American political conversation used to be carried out with bumper stickers. Our cars spoke our slogans for us. Now we use memes created by God knows who or what and the information comes from who knows where or what or if it’s true. Who cares? If it confirms my prejudice I’m sharing it with the world.

We need to be wise, and wisdom is what some of us name “God.” 

Ignorance is what others of us name “God.”

OK. Ignorance, I think, is when we ignore the facts that are given to us, and hide truth from ourselves. Put our minds on lockdown, build a border wall around our hearts, fear the unknown, and fear the stranger who comes to our gate seeking asylum.

We see refugees whose homeland has gone to Hell and imagine they are an invading army.≈

Uh. It’s hopeless. Here comes your Covid 19 Breakdown.

I want to break open your mind. I want to change your mind, but can I even be alone with my own mind?

We listen to stories and we make up stories and call them theories. 

We call the really really old stories “sacred,” or we call them “myths” because we don’t know who first told them and we’re not sure why they told them, but, with some alterations, we tell them again. 40 days on an ark, 40 years in the wilderness. We can talk about them and compare them to what we are living through now, the facts that are given to us, the facts that we cannot understand, the creation of the world and the destruction of the world and the creation of another world. 

How did people long ago understand overwhelming events beyond their control? How did they respond and what mistakes did they make and what did they get right? How adequate is the meaning system we inherited?

What has humanity learned and how has the species survived for the short time we have inhabited this sphere in the void? 

How can we understand birth and death and how do we live knowing we die, and why?