Theatre of the Absurd
Every day, we live in the world of the absurd when it comes to masks and preventing Covid transmission, infection.
I feel like an anthropologist from Mars. Truly. Like Dr. Sacks trying to figure out the strange behavior of homo sapiens sapiens. Especially when it comes to the continued wearing of masks.
Is it the fear? Is it “just in case”? Is it about status, virtue? Or is it really just “follow the leader?” This continued use of masks when there is so much evidence showing cloth masks don’t work.
Evidence on the effectiveness of non-medical (fabric) masks. Overall, the reviews concluded that cloth face masks have limited efficacy in combating viral infection transmission.
Children aged up to five years should not wear masks for source control.
These words come from the World Health Organization. Yet, in my day-to-day world, the continued absurd mask theatre astounds me. It’s like nobody reads. Everyone just follows the leader and clings to some deeper fear or some deeper need to show their righteousness.
You go into a restaurant wearing a mask. Yet then, take it off to eat. Workers wear their mask all the while, you chomping on your burger.
You are chatting away maskless waiting for your plane. Boarding is called. Everyone, all the same people, trudge into the plane putting on your mandatory mask. Then, somewhere over Switzerland, the pilot comes on and says it is now safe to take off your mask.
I could go on and on with stories like this. I’m in Korea and just about everyone is out exercising, nice sunny day - with masks on! Cyclists wearing scarves over their faces. It’s that bat shit crazy, this mask theatre. All despite the evidence to the contrary about masks.
It’s all kind of like some stylized Kabuki theatre except we are living it!
It all fits into the Theatre Of The Absurd, meeting its 4 essential qualities;
A World Without Meaning.
The Isolation of the Individual.
Devaluation of Language.
Lack of Plot.
I was quite surprised during my time back in Canada. Most people have dropped the masking fetish. Seeing through it. Still, Canadians cling to the slogan - Get vaccinated or die. Some things take time.
Disclaimer: If you are for masking - fine, wear one. I think we all as grown-ups, should make our own decisions about our own bodies and health. However, mask requirements are absurd given no clear evidence masking works.
What is problematic about masking and public health is the cultural element. Let’s say for a second, wearing a cloth mask does its job. 100%. Fine. However, there is the pragmatic aspect of mask-wearing. We are humans, living together. Nobody, I mean NOBODY is going to keep their mask on at all times. We also, won’t wear one properly or maintain the mask properly. Especially, kids - that was a big mistake, masking them! We are social creatures. We err, we love. We are not masked robots.
Masking even if it did work, wouldn’t work because we are messy, beautiful, doing our best mucking about, yet mendacious creatures.
Why didn’t they ask anthropologists for advice about mask requirements before pushing the mask alarm button? Definitely an error.
We now know that you should wear a mask if symptomatic. Makes sense. That really is the only bottom line here.
At this point, just enjoy the theatre out there. Learn to laugh, move on, and embrace the contradiction and messiness of life. We do a lot of weird things culturally, for no apparent utilitarian reason. It makes us even more beautiful. Consider how we continue to wear ties! Or what about those judges with wigs?
We are like the New Guinean Highlanders, collecting the shiny lids of tin cans thrown away - wearing them, believing they gave special powers. True story. Must watch - documentary First Contact about the Leahy Brothers landing in the middle of Papau New Guinea in the early 1930s.
The Highlanders did perform their own science when the whites first landed in their little plane from the sky. The chief sent people out to spy and see if the whites actually shit and to bring back a specimen. After it was confirmed, yes indeed they did shit and yes indeed it looked and tasted like the regular stuff - the Highlanders stopped it with the nonsense of thinking the whites were from the stars.
Pandemic Poses
"Then to the chagrin of the animal world, along came humans and their fancy inventions." - E.O. Wilson
We are all guilty.
You leave the door open
and the cat runs out
never to be seen again.
You eat and breathe
and a 1,000 miles away
dies the last dawn ant.
You forget to pack
the P & J sandwiches
in your kid's lunch bag
and he leaves school
to go to the store
and gets hit by a bus.
We are all culpable. Deserving blame.
We all dance this dance macabre.
Life is perilous.
There is no safety,
the way atoms smash
and the wrong card hits the river.
There is no innocence, no salvation.
We are all guilty. Complicit in endless murder.
And so?
Get on with it.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Oh I hear you. I'm still pondering the ultimate answer to what drives this behavior but it is most likely what drives so much of herd behavior - the wish to be part of a group. Identity. But yeah, there is more of a wave/pendulum swing away from individual rights and individualism in general. I find that disconcerting and sad. Here, will take a long time before masks come off - so at least in the US, you are lucky that way. I just play along, once was a member of a theatre troupe.
I started fighting this whole covid insanity very early in 2020. I knew immediately that it was a lie from top to bottom. I felt like a lone crusader. Started a group, No Mask-No Vaxx Florida. I found out that there were others like me, but not until I got called everything but a child of God! No problem, I'm used to it.
But now I actually find myself getting angry and disgusted at the mask-wearers, when I should be pitying them. They are just plain stupid. They can no longer plead ignorance. The evidence has been overwhelming for years for anyone with half a brain.
These same people will voluntarily lock themselves in their homes and have no outside human contact if the government, through its bootlicking media tells them that it's for the greater good. Or even go stay in a "community center" if told to.)
Where you are, in Korea, and China, Japan,and other Asian countries, the people are used to this "greater good" claptrap. They have heard it their entire lives. But Americans, who used to pride themselves on having a high level of individuality have been so propagandized, that they are started to have that same mentality.
I can't wait to get out!