For myself growing up, I grew up in a traumatic childhood situation of war-like situations. Poverty. Not during whether my mom would be able to pay the rent at the end of every month. Not sure if my dad would steal money from mom and gamble it away (it happened many times).

Growing up was good for me. Why? It hardened me. Truth be told, the hardest years of my life were probably middle school. High school was hard, but far easier. College was a cake walk. Becoming self-employed was difficult, yet fun, challenging, interesting, and I already knew what it felt like living with little (I was never afraid of going broke or bankruptcy, because I saw my mom go through it, and it wasn’t that bad). But anyways, in my life I have had cycles of war and peace. Then peace and war.

Now, this is my thought:

American society has had a very long period of peace (at least for us private citizens in the states). Now, with COVID, we are at war.

So what will happen?

A different kind of war.

We are currently in a metaphorical war. A war with a virus. With an unknown enemy. Yet this is the problem:

We become more afraid of our fellow human beings.

Why? It is combination of seeing others as a zombie.

For example, if you’re infected with COVID, your signs might not immediately be apparent on the outside. Yet you have the potential or ability to infect me (something I don’t want to happen). Thus we keep our distance (social distancing) from others. But what is the consequence?

Every man for themselves (kind of like the mentality of Fortnite, where it is a ‘Free For All’ battle).

War mentality

Right now during the time of COVID, what are the vibes?

My thoughts and observations:

1. Social distancing (cannot trust your neighbor, not because they are bad evil people, but they may be infected). Thus be kind to your neighbor, smile, and wave high… but observe the 20-foot rule.
2. Rationing mentality: We gotta hoard up and store up on foods and other goods, because we do not know if they will not be available in the future. For example during war, there are only limited quantities of food, items, and resources. Perhaps the reason why Americans are freaking out so much is because we have never had this thought that “oh no… things might not always be so plentiful and unlimited”. One of my upsides of going to Cuba; to live with rations is a part of life there, and it ain’t so bad– we adapt and evolve!
3. Fear: Everyone staying indoors and living in fear. Social media and the news and other source of media feeding us ‘fear feeds‘, and ‘fear porn‘.

What do soldiers do during a war? We fight!

The most important people in society right now — front-line health workers, food-industry-supply-chain people, sanitation/hygiene people, doctors, etc. It has shown us what is truly “essential” in life:

1. Health
2. Food
3. Infrastructure, transportation, the internet.
4. Hygiene and sanitation (something we have not appreciated or thought about for a very long time…)

So we as private individuals and civilians, what are we to do? Like my friend Dylan Fan did — go out and document and see it for yourself. Or even for myself, go outside and live on as much as possible (within legal bounds):

War is good

War is good. It strengthens. It builds muscles. It hardens us. It makes us stronger, more resourceful, more ‘scrappy’, and less wasteful. It focuses us.

Also consider, PRE-COVID, so much of us were obsessed with the newest iPhone coming out, silly products, distracting things to buy. Consumerism was our slavery. Now we are living in this metaphorical biological war with the virus-enemy, we think differently. We act differently. We approach life differently.

The cycle of war and peace

Why do people like to watch war movies, play war video games and so forth?

I think more people want MORE drama in their lives.

But now when the drama is quite literally in-your-face (pandemic), then let us consider– is this what we really want?

How to thrive during a pandemic

So the question:

How can we best thrive during pandemic?

My thoughts:

1. Use this opportunity to think, philosophize and reflect on your life. To meditate. To posit NEW life goals for yourself.
2. Use this chance to make art, photos. Use the high stress of the moment to make diamonds.