Day 56 Your Quarantine Quotient; or, Vigilante Complacency

I had a client once who many years ago called me in utter dismay. She moaned, “I failed my colonoscopy.” I didn’t know quite what to say. I had the same stunned silence come upon me over this little goody this morning,

“As he looked over the protective equipment [in a retooled mask factory in Phoenix], the Guns and Roses rendition of the Paul McCartney song ‘Live and Let Die’ blared over loudspeakers. Searches for the song exploded on social media and critics were quick to take note. ‘I can think of no better metaphor for this presidency than Donald Trump not wearing a face mask to a face mask factory while the song ‘Live and Let Die’ blares in the background,’ the late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel wrote on Twitter.”

There was a video that accompanied the story which I played for eleven of its thirty-one seconds, when a thought struck me. Remember seeing pictures of U.S. presidents at the beginnings of their terms? They almost, to a man [sadly], look invigorated, enthusiastic, ready to hit the ground running.

Four years later, or eight, no matter what has gone down in the nation or the world, they almost, to a man [sadly], look exhausted, determined, and with much more grey hair than they had on Day One.

In those few seconds of that video, I thought, “He doesn’t look any different than he did on Day One.”

Then, of course, because thoughts come lightning-fast for all of us, it occurred to me why. Well, it came to me why all those other men aged so dramatically.

They cared, ergo, they were care-worn.

It didn’t really matter what they cared about either. It could have been anything: the poor, women, race issues, social safety net issues, class issues, economic issues, even partisan issues, even just the dignity of the office they held. No matter what, they seemed, each one, to care about something other than themselves.

What I saw instead is the same old, same old.

I am Trump. What I do is win. I am invincible.

Only the first of those three statements is true, and that, questionably.

The news this morning was a free-for-all of “Say what?!”

The President, maskless in a mask factory, turning a thinly-disguised, back-to-business-as-usual photo op into a campaign rally.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The Nepotee-in-Chief hiring volunteers from hedge funds and investment banks allegedly to vet supply offers of PPE to purchase, and being so unqualified to do the job that even the goofballs at FEMA said so.

Yawn. No surprise there.

Jared Kushner also steered those same volunteers to give contracts to friends and allies of the Trumps. On one occasion, a $69 million contract for one thousand ventilators—of which not one has been delivered. “Rick Bright, who was director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority until his removal in April, said in a formal whistle-blower complaint that he had been protesting ‘cronyism’ and contract abuse since 2017.”

Tell me something I didn’t know.

But the thing that sent me round the twist was this headline: “Administration to Phase Out Coronavirus Task Force.”

Say what?

“Despite growing evidence that the pandemic is still raging, administration officials said on Tuesday that they had made so much progress in bringing it under control that they planned to wind down the coronavirus task force in the coming weeks and focus the White House on restarting the economy.”

What?! WHAT?!

Then it hit me. The Incumbent-in-Chief has hit his, admittedly quite low, Quarantine Quotient.

He can’t take it anymore. In fact, he can’t take any more. He’s personally maxed out.

We’re all there really, and it’s wired into our brains. Humans can only tolerate the unknown and uncertainty for a limited amount of time, usually, say the scientists who study this phenomenon, about six weeks. We’re on Day 56. Eight weeks in.

As Markham Heid writes on Medium, “[T]he human brain is uniquely vulnerable to uncertainty. ... Some researchers have even argued that fear of the unknown is the bedrock fear that human beings experience—the one that gives rise to all other fears—and that a person’s ability to weather periods of uncertainty is a fundamental characteristic of a healthy, resilient mind.”

Trump et al are done with uncertainty. So they’re putting COVID-19 behind them. Period. End. Of. Discussion.

How’s your Quarantine Quotient?

Because even though the federal government that has egregiously and repeatedly and blatantly betrayed We the People is done with the coronavirus, the novel coronavirus is far from done with We the People.

It’s come down to this: how do I manage the loneliness?

We miss interacting with others and our environments, even as, like I am, introverts. We miss the way it was on every sensory level we’ve got. We miss seeing others, hearing others talk—even if not to us, the smells of food cooking on street corners, the hustle and bustle touching of public transportation, and in some cases, the taste of a kiss from our beloved.

The experts say routine is mandatory. Self-imposed routine unlike that imposed for so many of us by what’s outside us rather than from the inside out. I’ll buy that.

The other thing the experts say is get into the present moment. Touch a pet, listen to music, dance around the house, clean, meditate. I can buy this, too.

What experts are not saying is that no one ever died of uncomfortable feelings, save those of a pathological nature. This is what The White House is incapable of doing.

Sit with your feelings of discomfort. Just sit with them. Feel them in your body. Let them be. Don’t fix. Don’t argue. Don’t do anything. Sit there. You and your feelings.

Make an appointment to feel your feelings of discomfort. Set a timer—one minute, twelve minutes, whatever. Then don’t just do something, sit there. When we make space for feelings, they tend to evaporate. If you must, think about these wise words from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Loneliness is solitude made wrong.”

That’s what the Narcissist-in-Chief cannot tolerate—the loneliness. So he’s pulled out his usual playbook, and played his usual play: shift the focus.

If we don’t look at the coronavirus, will it go away? The White House seems to think so, but you and I know it hasn’t, it isn’t, and it won’t.

I couldn’t bear to watch the whole video, but I did pause a moment to think about what I saw on the blank face of our national CEO. The word came to me immediately: complacency. From Latin roots, the words mean with pleasure.

The first definition in the OED is: 1.1 Pleasure or satisfaction in one's own condition or doings; self-satisfaction.

And isn’t that what we’re implicitly asked to accept? His self-satisfaction at his own condition or doings. When we are instead cautioned repeatedly to be vigilant over our own health and that of the people around us.

Back to the OED: The roots of vigilant are Latin, and mean to keep awake. Here’s the first meaning: 1.A.1 Wakeful and watchful; keeping steadily on the alert; attentively or closely observant.

Now there’s a one-two punch for you. In this corner, Complacency, and in the other, Vigilance. What a bout that would be. Uh, is. It’s the political reality versus the physical reality we all face daily.

Here’s the missing ingredient in the complacency: Care.
Here’s the primary ingredient in the vigilance: Care.

You, I, we have a choice, Beloved. As always. If we choose to care, both for ourselves and for others and for our world, we have a secret sustainer that will constantly expand our Quarantine Quotients—despite the hard-wiring of our brains.

Care is the one thing that will always put anyone into the present moment. Well, active care. Take an action, any action, motivated by the fact that you care.

Ta-da! Vigilance in place, complacency vanquished, uncertainty handled for another moment.

The next time you feel your Q.Q. starting to slip, take another caring action.

An unidentified disease is striking children lately which doctors think is related to the coronavirus. “[I]n the recent wave of coronavirus-related cases, many of the children are in toxic shock with very low blood pressure and an inability of the blood to effectively circulate oxygen and nutrients to the body’s organs.”

Consider the symptoms:

Toxic shock
Very low blood pressure
Inability of the blood to get oxygen and nutrients to the body’s organs

It sounds to me like a very good description of what’s happening politically on the planet everywhere as well as a very good description of what’s happening environmentally on the planet everywhere. Ouch.

To accept as valid the complacency evinced by the soundtrack of the universe to ‘Live and Let Die’ is a travesty. And although it is perhaps, to borrow from former Vice President Al Gore, an inconvenient truth, we have the cure at the tips of our fingers if we’ll act on it.

Care.

Dr. Susan Corso is a metaphysician and medical intuitive with a private counseling practice for more than 35 years. She has written too many books to list here. Her website is www.susancorso.com

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