The Summer of COVID

Hello, world.  

It's been quite some time since the last post, which was a great one if you missed it. I wrote a post entitled How the Beatles Saved Me During Corona, it was a super fun post. If you missed it you can check it out here.

However, this post is about the Summer of COVID. This has been the most unprecedented summer of my life. Nothing went as planned, there was no great vacation, nor will there be. I'm continuing to work in a retail environment where I can easily get COVID. The threat is always there no matter what I do at work. If I get it, I get it, as they say. 

The summer heat has been unrelenting. Even as I write this now at 10 pm on a Thursday night, the humidity outside would make you sweat like a pig. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 100 degrees. 

I think the main thing for me this summer has been to just find a way to live during COVID, maybe even reinventing myself a bit. For example, I started playing less video games and playing much more music, increasing my creative abilities. I've been playing both guitar and keyboard every day. 

In addition, I've been reading outside my usual literary genres. I started reading more history books, starting with the Greeks and Romans. I even got into a popular podcast called Mike Duncan's History of Rome. 

Let me go on a tangent about some of the history books. Let me be very clear; I think everyone should know at least a little bit about Greek and Roman history. Start with the literary classics like the Iliad, the Odysee, and the Aeneid, and then read Plutarch's Lives. I think those are all essential readings for anyone in the modern era. Why? Because everything about the Western world was already created with the Greeks and Romans. Understand them and you get a much better understanding of how the western world was formed, shaped, changed, yet in some ways stays the same. This is one of the most important lessons I learned from books. I did not learn this from school. It doesn't matter what your idealogy is; Conservatives already know this stuff, and Liberals learn it from liberal arts college courses. No matter how smart you think you are, if you don't know much about the Greeks and Romans, then you're not that smart. You add this history to your repertoire with lots of philosophy and BAM! you're already smarter than most of the people you'll come across. Don't let it go to your head.

But it's not always about learning something new. I've also reverted back to some of my old school ways. I started listening to more classic rock music of the 1960s; the Beatles, the Kinks, Cream, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, the Rolling Stones, and more. What I found was that I was burning myself out on so much new music all the time and that I needed to listen to the classic music of my youth, rock music. I still love jazz and classical but now I save a little bit of time each day to kick out the jams. So while I recommend learning and doing new things to find a new way to live during the coronavirus, I also think going back to your inner self, really reflecting upon it, will reinvent and reinvigorate you as well. There's always a balance. 

Then there's the social distancing thing. While I've still been able to see some friends during COVID, I've mostly been staying at home with family. For a while, I met a lot of new friends that really liked me. But alas, I'm definitely a painted bird, and although I can pretend to fit in anywhere I go, in reality, wherever I go I'm a big target. I actually believe that even in my own inner circle, this is the truth. They're nothing like me and we don't really have much in common but our friendship is strong and keeps us going. It's actually pretty damn cool. So I guess what I've learned is that you should always strive for strong friendships but its always easy to tell who's worth keeping around and who's worth ditching. You might find that the harsh reality is that these people need you around them more than you need them. What do you do in that case? It's all up to you. 

I also wanted to talk about money. In this time of COVID, I feel like there's nothing really to buy because you can't really go out and buy stuff without putting yourself more at risk, being in a large store with a lot of people, and also, just because you can't go out and do anything, so there's really nothing to spend money on. I have no desire for things, therefore I don't buy anything. I buy musical equipment and I want more guitars but really there's no point. I think we're finally almost reaching the climax where money doesn't really mean as much as it used to. I find this to be a good thing. Mainly because I'm not rich. I believe the economy will get much worse before it gets better. The fact of the matter is that the average American doesn't have $500 in their bank account for an emergency expense. That's scary. If we as a nation can't figure out things like affordable housing, rent, and affordable food, and affordable education, then the country will get much poorer. The rising inequality will eventually reach a breaking point until the inevitable worker's revolution. Possibly even during a liberal administration? 

In conclusion, it's just been one hellova summer. I don't think things will go back to normal anytime soon. Now is the best time to truly find another way to live. Whatever you do, do it well, and really love it because although we're all in this together, we're all forced into isolation. Some of you will sink and try to find comfort in other people all the time, but the real ones will create an interior life, away from the world, away from their friends, their families, and truly live. That's what I' talkin' about.