By Eric Peters*
There is a definite urban-suburban skew of what is styled “long COVID” – i.e., persistent sickness psychosis – which you can see for yourself if you venture downtown. It will be especially noticeable if you don’t live downtown – and so aren’t used to seeing mentally ill people walking around with that strange device over their faces and everyone else pretending to not notice it.
We ventured downtown the other day, which for us is downtown Roanoke, VA – to check out the art museum, not so much to see the art but to see what apparently counts as “art” in these latter days of declinum et fallum.
Fittingly, there were other things on display besides the various disjointed lumps of metal and a whole room devoted to Bedazzled purses and such (we styled it the Target Collection). We saw a young family, guy and his wife plus their young son – all wearing the strange device over their faces. No one besides us seeming to notice what – just a few years ago – would have been cause for everyone to look and wonder . . . what the f?
As in – what is wrong with those people? And – what the f are they doing to that kid?
Pardon the profanity. But it’s necessary – in order to make the point. That being, a disturbing thing has been normalized by silent, complicit approbation. People sometimes wonder why deranged behavior seems to be almost a . . . pandemic. We see people who are not only confused about which sexual apparatus (and chromosomes) they were born with but also militant about their confusion being affirmed – and we wonder how this could have happened.
Really?
“Masking” – as it is called – is a symptom of a culture that has lost its mind. There is no other way to account for its persistence. And toleration thereof. Spare me, please, the unctuous platitudinous talk of their fears – and feelings. When this culture was healthy, it did not hold the hand of the mentally ill and tell them they were ok. It let them know they needed help. Parents explained to kids who asked them why those men (and women) shaved their heads and wore saffron robes and chanted and tapped tambourines . . . those are Hare Krishnas, son. They are lost souls who’ve fallen victim to a cult.
And the same for Moonies and trannies and other people who’d lost their minds.
If someone in the family began to develop an irrational fear of germs and catching cold, began to perform strange rituals such as obsessive hand-washing and insisted on wearing rubber gloves or a surgical mask – we’d try to get them to see a psychiatrist in order to help them deal with their pathological hypochondria. Because it was once understood that being a pathological hypochondriac was sad and debilitating.
Now it’s play-pretend that it’s “normal.” That it’s ok to see a young couple walking around in public with their “masked up” little boy – the latter being conditioned to pathological hypochondria by his pathologically afflicted parents. A healthy society would look at that and recoil. Would not abide it being done to the kid. How is making a child walk around with a “mask” over his face any different than making him walk around with a dunce cap on his head?
Arguably, it is worse.
The dunce cap merely humiliates the kid; makes him look stupid. The “mask” makes him feel fearful. Of others. Of the world. Of the unseen but everywhere viral bogeyman who’s gonna get him if he doesn’t wear that “mask.”
Try to imagine how the kid sees the rest of the world. And consider what he’ll think ought to be done about it as he grows up.
No doubt, his parents are telling him to be afraid – and that all the other people he sees who aren’t wearing a “mask” are not just foolish risk-takers but also mean and selfish people who don’t care about other people. They value their freedom more than our health. So we have to do what we can to keep ourselves safe from them.
It is certain that kid hears such talk constantly, so as to counter any nascent thought that, perhaps, his parents aren’t quite right in the head. So as to assure – even if not meant maliciously – that the kid grows up disturbed.
Italics to make the point. The parents of that little boy almost certainly don’t think they’re doing something vicious. They almost certainly believe they are doing something righteous.
And that’s what so depressing – and terrifying – about “long COVID,” or chronic sickness psychosis.
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