Since long before the pandemic, the world has been a big, scary place where bad things happen to good people and the innocent suffer while the selfish prosper. Given this, I understand why we tend to come up with reams of guidelines, rules, and edicts to which we cling, pretending that if we follow them precisely, all will be well.

Howwwwwever.

As an older millennial, I grew up with all the guidelines (complete with respectability politics) that would guarantee me, if not success, at least a relatively comfortable life. Then, I, along with all my fellow Millenials, watched the world implode multiple times as a direct result of actions taken by the same people who swore that following the rules was the way to go.

Here we are in the middle of the third(?) global implosion of my personal lifetime (so far) and I’m looking around at all the people currently suffering due to a worldwide disaster. I’m also looking at the people who are so committed to pretending that it’s over that they’re actively contributing to the next inevitable round of lockdowns. A surprising number of the people in group A are also in group B, which…???

At this point in the pandemic, isn’t it time to finally pull our heads out of our collective asses and actually work together on this?

I feel like it would go a long way towards easing some of the widespread suffering happening right now, you know?

To that end, maybe we could begin by acknowledging that the vast majority of us have been blessedly fortunate in one way or another throughout this ordeal.

For example:

• If you never once in the past 16 months had to figure out what to do after your income stream suddenly dried up… you’re privileged.
• If you haven’t had to choose which bill to pay in the past 16 months… you’re privileged.
• If you don’t have rent to pay (or any large loans, for that matter) every month… you’re privileged.
• If homelesseness was never once a concern for you in the past 16 months… you’re privileged.
• If you have familial support to replace the loss of childcare this pandemic caused… you’re privileged.
• If you don’t have to leave your house and interact with other people during a pandemic in order to earn a living for your family… you’re privileged.
• If you never had to figure out how to juggle the demands of your child’s digital school and the job you need to feed, house and clothe said child… you’re privileged.
• On that note, if you didn’t have to figure out how to get your child access to the necessary device and internet service to attend digital school… you’re privileged.
• And if you didn’t have to scramble to learn how to use a computer or tablet… you’re privileged.
• If you live in a country where your government had the sense, guts and means to do what was necessary to secure its population from this pandemic as much as possible… you’re privileged.
• If you don’t live in an area that has had to grapple with a natural disaster on top of this pandemic… you’re privileged.
• If you live in a country where you can walk into a pharmacy and get a so-called “premium” vaccine free of charge right now… you’re privileged.
• If you live in a country where you never have to worry about a bill for medical treatment if you eventually catch Covid… you’re privileged.
• If you have the option of accessing the very best medical care should you need it… you’re privileged.
• If you haven’t had to worry about getting treatment for a pre-existing or unrelated medical condition during this pandemic… you’re privileged.
• If catching Covid doesn’t mean probable (if not certain) death to you or a loved one… you’re privileged.
• If you haven’t already lost somone you love to this virus… you’re privileged.

That said, few (if any) people can claim access to all these privileges. People living in so-called “Third World” countries can claim access to some that “First-World” citizens can’t. And, of course, the “First World” is busily enjoying some of them as we speak.

I myself have been very fortunate in some ways during this pandemic and very unfortunate in others. I’ve done the best I can with what I had at the time and I have had to make some scary choices in the best interest of my family. The entire time, I’ve watched people who are completely oblivious to the ways they have been spared certain decisions make grand pronouncements about what others less fortunate should be doing. I’ve simultaneously watched people whose livelihoods were decimated by the pandemic safety measures struggle to figure out how to sustain themselves and their families until… well, until.

We’ve all watched as certain people did whatever they felt like based on the (all-too-often accurate) assumption that, while someone would pay for their actions, it wouldn’t be them.

And here we are.

We don’t have much control over which privileges we have. Despite our desire to believe the contrary, many of us have just been very very lucky to not suffer some of the things others have. If you and your family are healthy, employed, and relatively stable right now, absolutely be happy about it but please don’t kid yourself that it’s the result of any inherent virtue. Conversely, don’t fool yourself that those who haven’t been as lucky somehow deserve their current lot.

Shit happens. Ideally, you do the best you can with what you have. With the exception of a certain contingent that has been allowed to turn mind-boggling profits off of the pandemic (and race each other to space) while others suffered and died, most of us have less to work with these days.

So.

I propose that we maybe learn the lesson the pandemic has been trying to teach us over these last 16 months: we are actually all in this together.

We missed the chance to suppress the spread of the virus because too many of us thought Covid was no big deal if we weren’t personally in danger. Certain nations hoarded vaccines as if the events of early 2020 didn’t sufficiently prove that viruses don’t give a crap about lines on a map. We still have to shut down entire segments of society periodically to deal with the continued refusal to accept that we won’t be going back to the way things were anytime soon (we still don’t seem quite ready to talk about whether we even should).

So, what if we finally accepted that we have long been a cooperative species (and that the narrative promoting extreme individualism and selfishness comes from somewhere else)? This is because it makes basic common sense to work together to achieve a common goal, especially when the goal is to curb the spread of a contagious virus.

If we accept that, maybe we could stop trying to return to a state of ‘normalcy‘ that never served most of us anyway and start looking at what a functional society that serves the human beings living in it would look like.

At the very least, we should all be able to agree by now that… this… what we’re doing right now… it eh working. And If it’s so obviously not working, perhaps we should make sure we’re doing our part (like… perhaps… contributing to much-needed herd immunity by taking available vaccines, if we’re able).

Then, we can set about ensuring that those we empower to protect our interests are actually… protecting our interests. Because guess what they’ll get up to if they think we’re too busy squabbling over nonsense to pay attention to what they’re doing?