Covid And the Plague of Lighthouse Keepers

Hello, everybody. Back again, with more writing exercises and ideas. The last two posts were fairly genteel posts about how to be a great healer in competitive video games. I'd like to take a departure from that to talk about something substantially more serious. However, if you are a competitive gamer that plays Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, or Team Fortress 2, I highly recommend reading those last two posts.

So, what I'd like to discuss here is a fairly simple idea that I've touched upon already in older posts from weeks ago; Despite the mass communication of the internet, COVID-19 has caused a major disruption in all of our lives, turning us into a plague of lighthouse keepers. 

There are already a lot of people in our communities that don't like to be around others. With COVID, they have an excuse to be even more distant and go even more into isolation than previously before. Here's the kicker; until COVID is dealt a grievous blow, we're stuck in this mode of humanity, which is terrible for our health, well being, and mental health. 

Next, I'd like to go into these details as they pertain to myself. I'm naturally a very outgoing extrovert that likes to be around others. I've been on a leave of absence to be safe and stay away from potential COVID spreaders for two months as I work retail. The only contact I have with people right now is when I talk to my family, when I text friends, when I direct message people on social media, or when I play online video games with voice chat or text chat. Because of all that COVID hasn't really affected me much, but it has impacted me enough for me to take notice and write my thoughts about it in a meaningful way.

You lose a sense of community and mental well being when you're not around people and start spending almost all of your time alone. I'm actually really looking forward to going back to work in June not because I need more money [thank God], but because I'm used to a certain amount of screentime with others, engaging in conversation, and being acknowledged as a person for who I am in my community and workplace. 

Without that I'm a much different sort of person; I stop talking on voice coms and text chat in online competitive video games because I don't see the need for it, I stop direct messaging on social media apps because I think my people need more space away from me, I give my family more space and seclude myself more in whatever ways I can. The question is, is this good for me, and is it sustainable in the long run? What are the ramifications of living life in a lighthouse keeper sort of way? 

For some people, none of this might apply to them because some people naturally don't like to be around others much, and try to spend as much time away from them as possible, as well as saying as little as possible. Obviously, for those people, COVID is helping them out in a societal way. But for the vast majority of the population, they need that social construct in order to engineer their lives in a more meaningful way, myself included. 

We can't all keep going on like this and we know it. I've done really well under the circumstances but the show can't go on. As great as the digital age of the internet is in sharing and communication, it's a piss poor substitute for the real world. And that, essentially, is where the problem of COVID lies therein; it forces us to disperse and stay away from each other, and possibly even stop caring as much as we used to, and instead turn to our own quarantined, lockdown, isolated lives, looking for that spark of inspiration, that zest for life, that we simply can't get anywhere else. 

Still waiting for my saviour,
storms tear me limb from limb

How To Be A Great Healer In Competitive Games, Synergy

In my last post, I went into detail about what it takes to be a great healer in competitive games. Here, I'm going to expand upon the ideas from that, and go into more specific detail about synergy with the characters I play. To keep things short I'll go into the synergy between the healer and only one other character in each game. 

What is synergy? 

Creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. 

In short, this means you, as a healer, can combo with other characters [tanks/assassins/other healers] in such a way, that both you and the other character are that much more powerful [assassins], tanky [can take up more damage without dying, tanks], or durable [ other healers]. Your powers combined with others is so powerful that it is actually one of the most important deciding factors in if your team wins or loses the game. Other than actual skill. 

Now, I'm going to go into quite a bit of detail about synergy with the healers that I play in Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Team Fortress 2. Yall ready for this? 

First, Overwatch. I have 340 hours as a Mercy player and she's the reason why I play the game, because I really enjoy her playstyle, which is sort of campy, sort of like a ninja, and her synergy with other characters is astounding. When Mercy follows a character, healing and damage boosting them throughout the round, this is called pocketing, essentially Mercy is a great character to pocket with because she can use her cadeous staff not only to heal and keep the character she's pocketing alive, but she can also damage boost them as well, increasing their damage by 30% while doing so. Essentially, every time someone doesn't need healing, as a Mercy player, you always want to be damage boosting, in that circumstance. 

So, in Overwatch one of the strongest combos to synergize with is the Mercy/Pharah pocket. Pharah is a girl who shoots rockets and can fly in the air. Mercy can use her L-shift to fly with her in the air as well, creating a space force style combination, that, in the right hands, can be downright unstoppable. As Mercy, I want to make sure that Pharah can survive long enough to do as much splash damage with her rockets as possible, so I want to heal her in certain key firefights, and I want to damage boost her accordingly, like when she's hitting three or more enemy players with rockets, raining hell from above, with me beside her, flying around. I've found that every time Pharah uses her ultimate ability, Rocket Barrage, I always want to make sure in that moment that I'm healing her instead of damage boosting, because it takes a second before the rockets start shooting, and in that split second the enemy team can insta-kill her easily.

This is one of the strongest combos in Overwatch but it is beatable. If the enemy team plays a hit scan [like Soldier 76, Ash, McCree, Orisa], or two, sometimes, if need be, they can easily either kill Pharah as she's being pocketed by Mercy, or kill Mercy first, and then Pharah once she doesn't have that Mercy support. However, there are some Pharah players who are so good that they simply won't die to any hit scans, as long as they have the healing/damage boost support, they will always kill enemies. Combine that with a Mercy player who is superb, and you have a combination that is simply unstoppable. The strongest combo in the game. And for me the most fun. Add to that the fact that the combo has a funny name; Pharmacy.

Second, Heroes of the Storm. Varian is the King of Stormwind, from World of Warcraft, the leader of the Alliance. When he goes full tank mode, he uses a sword/shield, can parry attacks, charge to enemies/allies, and he's also super strong, probably the best tank in the game, IMO. My main character is Morales, she's a medic from Starcraft Broodwar. She's basically Mercy/Medic [from Team Fortress 2] but in MOBA form [massive online battle arena, like Dota, like League, what Heroes of the Storm is]. She uses a ranged single target heal that can be empowered with level ups and different talent choices. She has a Safeguard that can throw some shields on allies, an ultimate ability called Stim, where she can power up an ally to give them more attack power, and a Displacement Grenade which she can throw to enemies, displacing their attacking/defensive positions. 

Varian is a high tier hero and Morales is mid-tier because she doesn't have many escape routes and she's easy to kill. However, when you combine Morales with Varian, it is almost unstoppable. She can pocket Varian, making sure he doesn't get low on health. She can grenade any enemies that try to flank Varian or herself. She can stim Varian in a pivotal fight to turn the tide of battle. She can safeguard Varian to increase his defenses in fights. If you're a good Morales and watch your positioning so well that you hardly ever die, Morales will be able to keep Varian alive most of the time. And Varian will be able to tank through most of the enemy team damage, leading to easy, flawless victory. Basically, the strategy is foolproof. I can't even count how many games I've won with this combination with my friend Ip. The classic tank/healer dynamo of Heroes of the Storm, for me.  

Third, Team Fortress 2. If you made it this far, obviously my main character is the Medic ["Ocktober Fest!"]. I have 100 hours on medic and counting. My favorite character to pocket in TF2 is actually the Soldier, which is basically the same as the Mercy/Pharah combo except no flying, no damage boosting, all healing, all ground foot moving, and positioning. 

But actually it might not be the best nor the strongest. If you have a Heavy on your team in TF2, that is the character you want to pocket. The heavy is a tall, fat, gent with a mini-chain gun. He sometimes eats sandwiches to gain health, which he can also throw out to you when you're low on health. The Medic is a German doktor. He's the OG Mercy, meaning he heals with a ranged single target heal. However, he can't damage boost. But, he has the choice of being able to have different weapons in hand 1, hand 2, and a melee weapon. This is where TF2 gets its strategic qualities because the way you customize your weapons options heavily modifies your gameplay and game experience. For simplicity's sake, we're going to say the Heavy and the Medic are both using stock equipment that comes with the game. 

Okay, so the Heavy has the mini-chain gun as his primary weapon and the medic uses the medgun as his primary weapon. Here's where TF2 gets more interesting than Overwatch. The medic's medgun, when fully charged, at 100% makes any character he uses it on invulnerable for 8 seconds. Yes, you read that right. The medic's medgun makes any player he uses it on invulnerable for 8 seconds. This is so strong that it's primarily the reason why I enjoy playing TF2, and it changes the tide of most firefights if used on the right ally player at the right time. 

So, going back to our Heavy/Medic combo, the Medic can pocket the Heavy when securing points or pushing the payload. And when the Heavy is surrounded by tons of enemy players, you can pop Uber on the Heavy [it's called uber because the Medic is German], and he can literally mow down the entire enemy team in one fell swoop because his mini-gun has a far range, rapid fast fire, and it's super strong. For me the Heavy/Medic combo is the best combo in pc gaming history. A real bromance to Overwatch's sisterhood of the traveling pants.

That's all for now. There are plenty of other combos in these games, but for me these are by far the strongest that I utilize on a regular basis. Practice finding different combos as healers and you will find that there's almost nothing that can't synergy at least a little bit. You want to find what combos well and what doesn't and be able to see it on the enemy team as well, as this is a very strategic element of playing healers and winning games. 

"Have you tried not dying?"

How To Be A Great Healer in Competitive Video Games, An Essential Guide

 
Hello, ladies and gents. I've been doing a lot of writing exercises, mostly of a somewhat serious nature. Here I thought I'd lighten the mood up and write about how to be a great healer in competitive video games. 

This guide adheres to any kind of healing in any competitive video game but in this specific context I'm referring to healing in Heroes of the Storm [a Blizzard moba], Team Fortress 2 [class based shooter from 2007], and Overwatch [Blizzard's first-person shooter]. 

First, why would you want to play healers? Well, the reason I play healers is that I just prefer to be the backline of the team, not doing damage, not tanking damage [absorbing damage, and mitigating it], and healing the team, ensuring our victory by making sure that every player gets to survive fights more easily, making the entire team more durable, stronger. 

The other reason is that healers are naturally the playmakers of the team. If you're playing the healer you have the most important job, ensuring everybody's survival, mostly the tanks [the big brutes of games, that can take damage but can't dish it out as much as the DPS], but also the DPS [damage per second, the assassins of the team, getting the kills]. So if you're naturally a leader you'll gravitate towards being a tank or a healer, or if you're not naturally a leader but want to play a leadership role, then you'll gravitate towards being a healer. This is mostly of a personal nature for me, but it applies to other people as well. 

Or, you could want to be a healer because it just fits your personality. I don't have fun playing tanks and assassins, it's not my cup of joe. Girls gravitate more towards tanks and healers in online games, I've noticed, but other times they're on the frontlines getting the kills, so you can never judge a book by its cover. 

Second, it's all about positioning. As a healer, you're supposed to be in the backline of the team, making sure you don't get hit too much, or die very often, if at all. For example, the best thing you can do as a Mercy player in Overwatch is simply to not die very often and keep on healing as much as you can, and damage boosting if need be [don't worry about that for now]. The longer Mercy is alive and keeps healing, the better job she is doing. 

As a Mercy main myself, I've found that the best way for me to maximize my healing with the cadeuous staff is to simply not die. This is harder than hell, as most enemy players will be looking for you, Mercy, throughout the entire round to kill you, so that you can't keep healing. 

The trick is to be ninja-like. The less time the enemy team sees you, the easier it will be for you to survive. In fact, I know that the enemy Mercy is a really good player if I hardly ever see her throughout the entire round. The best way to do this is by using all obstacles in the map to your advantage; walls, monuments, buildings, ally players, and your abilities like your flight L-shift button. It should also be mentioned that you must know how to super jump to be an effective Mercy. To super jump, simply press L-shift and crouch at the same time while flying to an ally, and right before you reach the ally hit the space bar. This will give you a super jump, making it harder for enemies to hit you and making it easier for you to get to places where you can be ninja-like; hide, heal behind walls or around corners, or get to the high ground on maps so you can avoid fire on the ground level. 

Positioning by itself is a very simple concept. But, like playing healers or maining [I only play healers, maining is a term referred to when you only play healing characters as oppsed to tanks or DPS] it's easy to learn but hard to master. Steep learning curve. As a healer this is something you'll work on all the time, always improving upon. You'll never be a grandmaster of positioning as even grandmasters die out of position. 

Third, know your character. This is a given but you'll be surprised to see how many players out there will play their character the wrong way [their own way or just being clueless, which can be misguided and cause more losses in pug {pick up group} games].

There are so many players that think they've got their character down. They have hundreds of hours in the game, they keep perpetually playing the same healer characters, and then they wonder why they keep losing games all the time. Obviously, it's inevitable that sometimes you're going to lose games, but you can mitigate some of the percentages of losses if you simply know your character, so well, that you understand the mechanics of the character better than most of the other healers in your rank. 

How well do you know your character? Well, you simply play a lot of that one character. But that's only the beginning. The flip side is that you have to study up on your character; look up videos on how to play the character better, read forums where lots of different people give insight on how to play the character better, and lastly, learn from your deaths. If you know what keeps killing you and you utilize that knowledge to your benefit, you can lessen the number of deaths that keep happening the same way, and then start to learn more from the more random elements that kill you. Again, a very simple concept. But the meta for knowing your character is steep. 

Lastly, have fun. The whole point of competitive video games is to have fun. Yes, there will always be toxic players [people who can't restrain themselves, take their anger out on the team, cuss people out, are childish and stupid], and throwers [people who purposefully lose games because they're either not good players, or they want to make a point to the team that they're especially toxic] but for the most part, most players play for fun, and they play to win. Keep that in mind. Fun AND winning. Not just winning, not just having fun. The correlation between the two is strong as heck, but it should be noted yet again that if you aren't having fun you should simply log off the game and do something else. Fun is the one thing money can't buy and if you aren't having fun playing healer then you should definitely play a different class [tank/assassins] or take a break from gaming; perhaps go for a nice walk, or enjoy a nice novel. As a healer, your job is the most important to you and the team. With great power comes great responsibility. Use it wisely. 

Medic [from Team Fortress 2 w/ German accent]: Get on the cart dummkopfs!

Riders on the Storm

Back again, so very soon, after not writing much for the entire month. Well, actually, that isn't completely true. For you see, during this time that I've been on leave from work for two months, I've been writing a long short story, it's not finished yet. It's a better, more refined version of my zombie virus short story entitled Human, Ghoul, Zombie, which you can read here. Other than that, yes, the writing has been sparse. But we'll see how long that lasts. 

Here I'd like to explore the idea of walking the Earth, not only cognizant of yourself, but also dealing with how the pandemic has forced us all into an all too close relationship with ourselves, our families, our friends, and coworkers. I haven't seen too many people writing about this. Perhaps psychology blogs are all over this, who knows.

First off, we're all riders on the storm. We're all walking the Earth, in our own inimitable way. Before the pandemic life was simple, easy, and carefree. Now we are all forced into isolation if we're sick, isolation if we're not sick too, and we've been forced into an all too close relationship with our friends, families, coworkers, and loved ones. 

I don't know but I've been told that in other cultures they don't really have a problem with that. In fact, in some cultures, they prefer their people to be extremely close to each other; mom/dad/kids/grandpa-ma all live together and in poorer parts of the world there are sometimes entire families that live in one room together. The thought of that to most Americans is absolutely unacceptable. But it has its virtues. 

The Japanese make the best astronauts. Why? Because they're used to being confined in small spaces, they get along well with each other, and they're very polite. Why, if Americans were more like the Japanese, there wouldn't be so much dysfunction in families or in the workplace. 

In my own personal experience, I would say I've handled lockdown with family 24/7 pretty well. But not great. I'm not Japanese astronaut status, yet. What am I doing that's working well? 

For one thing, I've found that I'm actually able to find the breaking points with the people around me; I know when and if I set them off, when and if I need to give them space, when and if I need to cool it, and when and if I can engage with that person more in a friendly nature, and lastly, when and if I'm set off/when and if I need a break and/or time out. I'm talking about this as it pertains to myself, my family, and friends but it also applies to my work life as well. 

The lockdown has forced many families into situations where it's easy to be mean or even small to your family, friends, and coworkers. Familiarity breeds contempt as they say. What we're trying to do here is to avoid all that, or if it's impossible to avoid it, to mitigate it as much as possible in order to strengthen relationships and make life better and easier during the most brutal moment in our lives. 

Obviously, if someone ticks you off, you should say something, right? Yes, but watch out, what you say to the other person might affect your life in a much more severe way than you think, especially if you live with that person, if you work with that person closely, or if they're a good friend of yours that you see on a regular basis. It's best to be lighthanded when it comes to dropping the hammer on people that are in your immediate close circle that you see all the time or live with. When it comes to severe arguments, and yes, they are inevitable I'm afraid, remember that it's always the person who gives in and bends the knee and stops fighting that is the better man. You can argue till you're blue in the face but if you see this person constantly you're a lot smarter if you just bend the knee and find some reasonable accommodations between you two. This goes for social and/or work relationships too.

Lastly, to close I should add that life with my family has become like a dramatic space opera; where I'm confined inside a small space shuttle with three other people, and everything I say to them, or do in the space shuttle, every action, large or small, has repercussions or positive effects that strengthen or diminish the morale of everybody aboard the shuttle. Obviously, I want the crew to make it to their destination and finish the mission. In order to make sure that happens each person has to play their part. Or if I play my part in such a manner that it's so good that I astound myself, what the other crew members do won't be as crucial, leading to a stronger party, like a pickup group in a video game with strong leaders and supporting roles that carry the team to victory. The point of all of this is simply to make you a more thoughtful person; the process is daunting, but the reward is a lifetime achievement. 


"The world on you depends, our life will never end"

Hyperbolic Time Chamber

Hello, everybody, Que Tal? May has been a slow blogging month for me. Just taking it day by day, taking it slow, like a sloth. I've written a lot on the blog about time, how time seems to have different states; slow, fast, constant, stopped, nonexistent, perpetual. What does time feel like during COVID to you? 

For me time seems to be in a vacuum. By that I mean that time seems to have slowed down exponentially, perhaps it's even stopped sometimes. Yes, things are happening in the world, more Americans dying and getting infected, for one thing, the biggest and most important story right now, but there's also our own small, yet still equally important personal lives, meager as they seem.

It's a given that those that get to work from home during COVID are privileged. Hell, I think I'm privileged because of the fact that I have enough money to take two months off from work. As a result, the last two months have been the slowest days of my entire life.

Now, is that good or bad, or is there neither praise nor blame attached? Well, it's good because I get to practice my skills, however meager in the nonexistent economy they may be; guitar playing, writing and reading literature. It's bad because all the extra free time conduces me to spend copious amounts of video game hours just messing around. On the other side of this spectrum, one could say that it doesn't matter much but obviously that's just a cop-out.

The best thing about lockdown during COVID for me other than the fact that I've been away from work for two months after having worked seven years straight with hardly any vacations is that I've been able to develop even more of an interior life. What am I talking referring to?

Interior life is the life you live inside yourself without others. Do you constantly need to be around other people more often than not? Are you uncomfortable with being alone in a room by yourself, doing nothing, in particular, just relaxing, perhaps reading or staring at a wall? Interior life can only be improved upon with you knowing that you don't need to be around other people all the time. You have to have alone time to gather your thoughts, energy, and focus on the tasks at hand, which is important to you and you only. Or are you constantly searching for that something, like an affirmation or anything else, to always be around other people for various reasons? This concept also applies to the online world as well. Think about how many people keep checking their notifications on social media apps all day. They do this because they get pleasure from seeing notifications, a shot of dopamine. If you want to develop the interior life you should not check your social media or smartphone notification apps all day. Put a limit on it.

Interior life isn't easy to develop. For me, it started with my solo guitar practice sessions, long reading sessions, and epic pug [pick up group] online gaming sessions. For you, it could develop in various ways that are more personable to you and your life.

In case I didn't explain clearly enough, the interior life is a sort of spiritual, not just a regular solo experience. Reading the news every day online is part of my interior life. When I read the news after I wake up in the morning, I feel a sense of urgency to see what all the news headlines are, and read them, and make my own assessments based on said articles. When I do this, I go into a flow state, a similar flow state I go into when I practice guitar; where time and space ceases to exist, and I enter a state of simply 'being,' the more you do these sorts of things, the more you develop this flow state, which will help you in nearly every aspect of your life.

One of the subtle ways of developing an interior life that has improved my friendships and relationships is that I know when to back away from people socially, to allow and give them space. When I'm in a setting where there are more than two people I know what questions to ask, when to lay out and listen, and when to let the others talk more so than myself. In short, it's improved my social skills a lot as well as giving me a guiding light in my personal free time.

Now, going back to the beginning. The snake eats its tail, as they say. At this point of the pandemic journey, and my own personal journey alongside it, I would say that it has been my interior life that has saved me from sheer agony or perhaps one could call it the killing boredom; the loss of in-person hangouts, not eating at restaurants with my family or friends, not playing open mics, not hanging out with girls, even not working for two months straight.

It was the interior life that shackled time and allowed me to do my thing and free myself. In these daunting times, it was just the thing I needed. A hyperbolic time chamber.

Impressions & Feedback

Howdy, yall. I'd like to share a track from yesterday's jam session that I thought sounded pretty cool. I really like the ending here, as it's a Hendrix move, where I shove the guitar into the amp, producing sonic fury, distortion. It's a rather unorthodox way to end a typical straight-ahead jazz standard, Impressions, but it's nice to break out of ones' shell and try something different, more rock and roll. Enjoy Impressions. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/impressions-feedback 

Orlando Figueroa, guitar
Jason Thomas, alto saxophone

Surviving the Zombie Apocalype Virus pt. 7

Salutations, good people of the internet, and of the ofigueroamusicblog. I haven't written in a long time, and for starters, let me say, that it's good to be back writing blogs again. For those of you that were wondering where or what I have been doing, feel free to check out my plague journal, located here.

Moving on, to the current events. Covid-19 has ravaged the lands. America is described as a failed state by other nations that feel pity for us and periodicals in op-eds state the same. Today, 2,000 people died from the virus in the US.

I'm still on hiatus from work, on a leave of absence. This has been ongoing since April but I think when my time is up in June, I will go back to work, and just pray to God that I don't get COVID. I need the money and the stimulus isn't enough. I wear gloves and a mask as a safety precaution. I think everybody should wear gloves and a mask if they go to the grocery store.

I've been bunkering in my room. I've been playing a lot of video games and reading a lot. Right now I'm focused on finishing Plutarch's Lives, a history/biographies book by an ancient Greek named Plutarch, and the book focuses on the lives, achievements, and virtues of famous Greeks and Romans. It's a heavy-duty book, consisting of 1200 pages, right now I'm almost to page 400! I find that reading ancient history really puts me in a different universe, one where I don't have to worry about the woes of the present predicament. It's a sense of freedom, that's what I enjoy about reading the book in particular.

Before that, I finished a science fiction short story hall of fame collection. That one was very impressive and I learned a lot about the science fiction genre from it. It focused on stories from the 1940s to the 1960s, aka the golden age of science fiction. I can see where a lot of sf ideas came from and noted that none of the new sf movies/shows/short stories/novels are original. "It's all been done before." 

I also read two great science fiction pulp novels from the 1940s and 1960s. The first one was The Day They H Bombed Los Angeles, a wonderful zombie apocalypse wasteland story, probably the first of its kind. The writing was only okay but it was a fun read. Want to know how a zombie apocalypse wasteland is created? An H Bomb. There's a twist. These zombies become sentient, enough to the point where they can shoot guns and call others for help in firefights.

In addition, I read Slan, a novel from 1940, the first mutant novel. It's very pulpy writing, meaning its not very literary at all, however, there's a great twist for an ending that is very endearing. It turns out that the woman the main character, a young mutant man loves, she's also a mutant, her father is the villain of the novel. But that's not all. The villain was known for being a bad guy that hates mutants, and not a mutant, completely human. Well, it turns out that he's the father of the woman our hero loves, AND a mutant, AND our hero doesn't have to kill him because he's allowed him into his shadow government organization where mutants have infiltrated human society. How nice. 

Aside from books, I did start writing a beginning for a zombie apocalypse virus novel but haven't made much progress. It has the same name as my zombie virus short story, entitled Human, Ghoul, Zombie, which you can read here.

Lastly, I've been playing a lot of guitar. I play acoustic guitar on my balcony most afternoons or evenings. As a result, I've become a much better guitar player. Acoustic forces you to work on your chords and timing, leaving the fancy solos in the dust. My jazz improvisation is at its best its ever been and I'm still doing my jazz duo with my friend Jason, who plays the alto saxophone. In my plague journal, you can hear some of our recordings. Check out our latest free form improvisational track The All Wizard.

Tonight I jammed outside on the balcony and my neighbor across the way came out with his acoustic and we did a short jam session. It was a lot of fun. He played chords and I played lead over it. We had one really good number but the rest wasn't so hot. Still, I give Chris props for coming out and bringing out his guitar, him knowing that I practice guitar outside almost every day and have a lot more chops. There was a sensational moment as a result of this; both his family and my neighbor's family next door came out, and we all talked for a bit. The power of music really brings us together!

I plan on going back to work in June. But in the meantime, I'm reading Plutarch and taking the news day by day. If you read the news nowadays or watch the news on TV, it's very scary, and it's very real. Welcome to our nightmare. 

But don't fret. The best thing we can do is keep calm and stay undeterred from our goals, our plans, our lives, our families, our jobs, our hobbies, our fortunes and virtues, or lack thereof. The strongest skill of this time period isn't wealth or even happiness, perhaps not even health, rather it is the ability to stay focused on the things at hand, that truly matter. 

Don't let up.