If COVID-19 has accomplished anything, it’s that it has exposed how psychologically brittle we are as a culture. Our collective psyche is as sensitive as an exposed nerve.
A new infectious disease arrives, and the situation is immediately catastrophized, the worst possible scenario is viewed as the one most likely to be true, and we proceed to destroy society, ironically harming the most vulnerable, destroying the lives of children, violating human rights on an unprecedented scale, dangling modern civilization over a socio-economic abyss. And all for this?
I truly believe that when Doomsday does arrive, it will arrive on the wings of irony. And in our last moment before our descent back into Stone Age oblivion, I at least hope we’ll be granted enough of a sense of perspective to realize that we caused it, and for no other reason than that we were allowed to be frightened into extinction by the phantom creations of our own mind.
