Plague Times and Freedom, Baby!

Q: I’m having trouble socializing post-pandemic. It seems like a lot of my foundational friendships changed considerably over the Plague Times, as I suppose we all have as individuals, too. Do you think it’s possible to reclaim these relationships, even our own identities, as they were, or is this torched landscape the brave new world we must step into?

A: Nothing like a plague to switch it up, eh? But you’ve come to the right Galaxy Brain because if these Plague Times are teaching us anything (present tense because Plague Times are the newest World Order) it’s this – there’s no going back.

Remember Tom Hanks in Splash (spoiler alert!) when he thinks he can be a fish with Daryl Hannah and come home for Christmas and be a man with John Candy? And she bursts his bubble, no, he has to make a choice, either he’s a fish with her or he’s a man with John Candy, but he can’t be both because there’s no going back?

Well, it’s like that with you except you didn’t even have to make a choice. Lucky you, pushed into the sea to be a fish with, not just Daryl Hannah, but John Candy, too, by a new and deadly infectious virus.

That’s right, just as The Beatles predicted. I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together – goo goo g’joob. Same fish in a different sea/different fish in the same sea.

Either way, best learn to swim.

And yes, feel free to resent our new Plague Times World Order, but understand this – the landscape is not torched, it’s just gone a little feral. Nor is it a brave new world, it’s the same old path of least resistance one. You’re not stepping into it, either. You’re part of it, always were, always will be. And just like that new and deadly infectious virus, you, my human bean friend, must adapt or die.

Kidding!

As you can plainly see, plenty of human beans aren’t adapting and they’re not dying either. In fact, they seem to be very annoyingly alive, thriving in their non-adapting ways.

You probably thought it’d be a no-brainer for a human bean to sign up with the rest of the human bean army, first masked, then masked and vaccinated, to defeat the enemy, or at least limit its body count as much as a human bean army can.

Nope. Freedom, baby. Big Mask and Big Vaccine can’t tell a human bean what to do, pandemic or no pandemic, public health care professionals trained in epidemiology or no public health care professionals trained in epidemiology. That’s right, freedom isn’t just another word for nothin’ left to lose, freedom means doing a human bean’s own research to defeat a new and deadly infectious virus – if there even IS a new and deadly infectious virus.

Heck, pack up the wife and kids, take that research on the road.

Civic duty? Sissy doody!

What price freedom? Devolution!

Also, I don’t know what you mean by “foundational friendships”, but relationships change regardless of plagues so no it isn’t possible to reclaim them as they were.

Unless you grew up beside twins. A foundational friendship with twins is the exception because twins don’t change, they stay exactly the same all their lives. And in their presence you will revert back to when you first became friends with the twins, and in no time at all find yourself swinging in someone’s back yard, belting out show tunes.

Besides, you should know by now, the past is just a story human beans tell themselves. And I don’t know you *well* but I am a Galaxy Brain and so don’t have to to know you *well* to know you’ve mixed your story up with “Friends”. Or more likely the spoof of “Friends”, the one that got canceled after season 2.

It’s easy to do. I was telling my story at Galaxy Brain book club recently – or what I thought was my story –  about being a young staffer at 10 Downing Street (London, England) and the handsome newly elected British prime minister falling for me when Joanne (who never reads the book but always shows up unless it’s her turn to host) piped up, “Did the handsome newly elected British prime minister look like Hugh Grant?”

So embarrassing. I’d mixed up my story with Love, Actually.

Again!

By the way, pre-Plague Times aren’t actually very long ago so just a heads up that your most important foundational friendship was probably with your phone. And even if yours wasn’t, it was with all your friends. After their phone and before their foundational friendships comes (in no particular order except probably partner): Kids. Dog. Partner. And those relationships take up 99.999% of their time.

Look, when I was a young Galaxy Brain all I wanted was for my family to stay together forever and ever. Then, like my older sister and brother before me, I moved on, leaving my younger sister behind with our mother. Then she too moved on and our mother took up golf and gambling.

Also possibly the roofer who started answering her phone. A lot.

Later my own little galaxy brains would play “Store” and chatter away about how we’d all stay together forever and ever, selling little plastic food offerings for buttons of various sizes and fanciness. And it was happy/sad for me because of course I knew that’s not how life goes.

Also any parent who thinks kid love of parent lasts doesn’t remember being a kid.

Fortunately, around that time I read my little galaxy brains “Little House on the Prairie”. Well I don’t know if you’ve read it lately but Pa was one heck of a fellow for pulling up stakes, moving Ma and Laura and Mary away from, first family, then friends, leaving people behind forever, no guarantees ahead. And we talked about that, how really, human beans are the same all over, but different, too, and human beans who don’t like being left behind, have to adapt to human beans who like moving on.

(I know I’m a Galaxy Brain but I still haven’t wrapped my head around those movers on who want a one way trip to Mars. Man that’s got to be hard on human beans who don’t like being left behind.)

Be honest, Plague Times are good times, too, not just bad, and you developed new relationships because of this new and deadly infectious virus. And remember the musical, “Stop the world – I want to get off”? (It’s okay if you don’t but maybe think about expanding your horizons a bit.) Well the world did stop, and human beans did get off, and then human beans got back on again and now there’s a backlog to deal with and everybody and everything everywhere is messed up and some human beans are trying to get Mad Max, Plague Times, happening, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.

My point is, because a Galaxy Brain always has one, you’re living through an extraordinary event. Also very existential but let’s skip that here and focus on how extraordinary it is.

Here’s the proof.

A while after everybody and their Aunt Thelma knew there was a new and deadly infectious virus headed straight for us, the Government of Canada told everybody to go home and stay home.

Then it condensed a thousand year plan to go digital (pending further stakeholder consultation) to a weekend!!!

No, I cannot get out of here because it’s true. And think how many times you’ve heard the expression “the government was slow to act”. Well the government IS slow to act. As it should be. The last thing you want is fast-acting government. That’s freedom, baby territory, fast-acting government. Try this! Try that! Get on our bikes and ride!

My point expanded on – it’s not about you, your friends, your family, your misremembered (not a word) relationships – it’s about your government. The pandemic forced it to go digital, a process that wasn’t going to get started even in a Galaxy Brain lifetime – and – it only took a weekend! And not just that but all those thousands of your co-human beans who used to run your government from behind baffles in poorly ventilated carpeted germ factories in downtown Ottawa? They’re working from home!

In their pyjamas!

Even file clerks!

Now that – that’s freedom, baby!

But yeah, I’m a Galaxy Brain so I’m not gonna sugar coat it – stormy seas ahead. Stormy seas. And they’re full of all kinds of human beans, some of them have gone feral, others have devolved, but lots of them are just like you, part of the human bean army, masked and vaccinated, doing their level best to defeat the enemy.

Now get to work on those swimming skills, you’re going to need them.