I threw a small fit at the beginning of April. It was born in frustration with people not wanting to get vaccinated. I didn’t spend that much time on social media due to past frustrations, but when I did venture into the swamp I saw articles about large numbers of people saying they would never get the covid vaccine. It made me angry. I don’t know why I let it get to me so much. I knew when the vaccines were ready there would be an anti-vaccine movement. I knew there would be a large cluster of them in my home state. I guess I hoped that seeing all of the death and long term illness caused by covid-19 would minimize their numbers. I shouldn’t have assumed others were reading article after article about the deaths and mysterious long-term covid or the more rare issues that seem to be connected to covid. I shouldn’t have assumed people who were worried about the quick development of the vaccines, like I was, were seeking information about how the vaccines were being developed and newer technologies being utilized. I am not a scientist and the articles have some confusing terms but if a person wants the information it is available. It’s available in a way that information during a pandemic has never been available before. I could look up every term I didn’t understand. I could verify what one scientist was saying with what others in the field were saying. By the time it was my turn to get my vaccine I felt very confident that getting the vaccine was the best step forward. I was very confident that I would rather face the rare chance of complications from the vaccine than face the higher chance of complications from getting covid-19.
At the beginning of April I was fully vaccinated and those in my immediate family were either vaccinated or scheduled to be vaccinated. Then someone in my extended family said they were afraid to get the vaccine because pharmaceutical companies are evil. How do I respond to that? The case for them being evil isn’t difficult to make. They haven’t exactly put patients’ health ahead of profits. So I made the point that it is in their financial interest to keep covid from killing us so they can keep selling us drugs. It was a weak response but it was all I had. Then I read an article that infuriated me. It was about covid never going away because too large of a portion of the country was refusing the vaccine. On my personal facebook page, I posted the article and called Americans idiots, cowards, and stupid. My statement got me flagged on facebook and I was given a warning. That made me even more angry so I reposted a picture of my original post but sarcastically called Americans very smart and “brillant.” I noticed I misspelled brilliant and decided to leave it because it felt appropriate. My sarcastic post made me feel a little better but it wasn’t enough. I also made a word therapy with the words of my original post.
Spending time tracing, altering and repeating the words calmed me. It was a form of meditation. As I worked on it I thought about how angry I let the situation make me. Early in the pandemic I knew people were going to refuse the vaccine. I knew they would not allow us to respond to the pandemic in an intelligent way. I should not have allowed my anger to rise due to something I had so much time to plan for happening. To allow my anger to subside, I decided to take a month long break from social media. I also decided to stop asking my extended family to get the vaccine.
I decided to control what I could and let go of the rest.
When I returned to social media I was feeling better. I had accepted that we will likely have to get annual covid vaccine shots and wear masks when the is another outbreak. When I checked my art facebook page a person had basically called me stupid and poorly informed for promoting the vaccines. Instead of posting on my more aggressive post he posted his comments on a very benign video I had posted about how getting the vaccine would let us get back to normal. He called me the same type of things for promoting the vaccine as I had called those who refused to be vaccinated. And that is what is really wrong with Americans. It isn’t that we’re idiots or cowards or stupid. It’s that we enjoy being separated. We want to take sides. We want to hate the other team. We don’t want to concede. Compromise or even listening is a rare occurrence. I try to listen. I understand some people believe their immune system is sufficient. I understand why some people are weary about pharmaceutical companies. But a lot of Americans cling so tight to their initial judgment that even listening to information that does not support their instinct is a betrayal of how they define themselves. When I hear someone tout their the highly effective immune system as a reason people should skip the vaccine I think of all the people who have died over thousands of years because the human immune system couldn’t defeat illnesses. As scientists developed ways to boost our immune system fewer people died. I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t think about the evidence that goes against their initial judgment. The immune system excuse seems very naïve and involving very little critical thinking. I suspect it is actual more about being obstinate just for the sake of being obstinate. Some Americans are very good at refusing to change course out of pure stubbornness. Not because they have fully evaluated the situation and have come to the conclusion they are on the right course. But because they don’t want to admit they were wrong or changed their mind. Instead they avoid any information that could loosen the tether to their opinion. I am sure obstinance in one’s instinctual judgment can help a person get through some tough situations. It was likely a trait many colonizers and pioneers had that made it possible for them to succeed in an unfamiliar land already inhabited by people who lived very different lives than their own. Maybe those roots are why Americans have such a difficult time with change and new ideas.
If we could rationally take in new information we could have defeated covid-19 fairly quickly. Others countries have shown us it is possible. If everyone voluntarily isolated for a few months the virus couldn’t have moved from person to person. We could defeat covid-19 now if everyone who is medically able got vaccinated. We could have had a life without covid-19 by now. It is possible. But human beings, especially Americans, act against their own interests and against the interests of their fellow citizens. These contradictory acts are usually made in response to things we either don’t understand nor want to understand or because we think sacrificing others will give us an opportunity to get ahead. Not get ahead through hard work and perseverance but through cheating. We have continually made decision after decision that creates distance between groups and prevents us from working together in a mutually beneficial way. We could have had a fair country by now where everyone has the same opportunities to succeed. Instead we created a country in which people feel like they are cheated unless they have cheated someone else. We created a country of fear and distrust of each other when we could have had a country in which we have confidence and trust in each other. Instead many Americans continue to avoid dissonant information and we all get stuck with less than what we could have had.
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