On Christmas Eve, we saw people. Not the people we normally would have seen, but people in our neighborhood. It was pleasant enough to be outside and enjoy a fire pit and some mulled cider. If there is any silver lining to this horrible period in history it is that we’ve learned to enjoy the outdoors more.
We got on the topic of the 20s. Not 2020, but the 1920s. The roaring 20s. I don’t claim to be an expert on this history here, but if the last major pandemic occurred in 1918, it may be safe to assume that coming out of that dark period played a part in the roaringness of the roaring 20s.
Will that happen again or will fear take over?
We have to stay safe. We have to stay home. But with each passing day, the fear and the impact on mental health becomes greater. Our society is going to be fucked for years by the fear that has been developed though out this period. We are afraid to be close to each other. We are afraid to take our masks off. We are afraid to invite others into our homes.
We are simply afraid…
Quite honestly, I don’t know if there is more awful shit in the world than there was in the 1920s, but our access to information is greater. Almost daily, my phone tells me that there was a shooting somewhere. The cases are rising. We’re all going to die.
So we stay home. We eat massive amounts of food out of boredom. We drink in excess. We numb ourselves with drugs. We slowly die in front of the TV. We burn ourselves out on zoom. We think about maybe going somewhere and doing something, something safe like a walk or a hike but then we say nah…
It’s too easy to just stay home and rot. It’s too scary to go out. There’s too much to entertain us at home. There’s no shortage of information that we can access to convince of this.
I want to be hopeful for a resurgence of the roaring 20s, but at the moment I am deflated…
