Breakthrough Infections, Student Loan Debt, and Divorce

The one thing they all have in common

At first glance, if someone were to ask you what the three items in this title have in common, you might be hard-pressed to come up with an answer beyond “they all suck.” And it’s true, they do suck. Yet their commonality goes deeper. For all of them are the result of doing everything society has asked of you, and then getting screwed over for doing so.

And the thing is, when you’ve ceded to societal expectations and been punished for it, it tends to leave you rather jaded. You find yourself swinging from avid supporter to staunch opponent of whatever it is that burned you.

Take student loan debt for instance. According to the site Nitro:

Americans now owe more than $1.73 trillion in student loan debt… That money is not only owed by young people fresh out of college, but also by borrowers who have been out of school for a decade or more. The standard repayment timetable for federal loans is 10 years, but research suggests it actually takes four-year degree holders an average of 19.7 years to pay off their loans.

How many people out there — especially Millennials — bought into the notion that you have to study hard and get good grades to get into a good college, and then you have to get a college degree to get a good job and have a good life, only to find themselves stuck in some soul-sucking dead end job, an expendable warm body to some inhuman corporation, and a hundred thousand dollars in the hole for that privilege?

Is it any wonder we’re now witnessing the Great Resignation? Is it any wonder that anti-Capitalist sentiment is on the rise? That people no longer buy into the Horatio Alger myth they’ve been spoon-fed since childhood?

Or how about divorce? According to this site (based on statistical data from the CDC and U.S. Census Bureau):

Accounting for all age groups, statistics and data over the past few years indicate that almost half of all first marriages in the United States end in divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages that end in divorce is even higher than first marriages. It’s estimated that 60% of all second marriages end in divorce, while 73% of third marriages will end in divorce.

Clearly marriage is not one of those things you get better at with practice. But once you’ve tried it, only to find yourself suddenly trapped in your afore-mentioned, soul-sucking job in order to make child-support payments, unable to relocate to another city, unable to retire early or to explore entrepreneurship, you tend to be pretty over it. Thus the increasing popularity of polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, friends with benefits, and other “alternative” partnering arrangements.

Why not try something different? What’s the worst that can happen? Not divorce. So let the freak flag fly.

I’ve had more than one forty-something, divorcée mom tell me (in defense of why they’d never consider getting married again):

I don’t need a man to provide for me. I have a fulfilling career and I own my own home. I don’t need a man to give me children. I’ve already had and raised happy, healthy children. I need a man for precisely two things — one of which is companionship.

How can you argue with that? And there’s certainly nothing wrong with having and satisfying basic human needs.

And don’t even get me started on breakthrough COVID infections. According to the Department of Health in my home state, “Current reporting shows a recent 43% increase in the number of breakthrough cases.”

I’ve seen articles on Medium whining about the general public’s increasingly cavalier attitude toward Omicron and toward the pandemic in general. What do these whiners expect?

When you’re fully vaxxed, boosted, and masked, living in a liberal, highly-vaxxed city with proof-of-vax plus masking requirements in all establishments, and you still catch the vid from going to a concert, yeah, the pandemic is over.

When your kids catch it fully vaxxed and masked all day at school (which is wreaking havoc on their social skills development from never seeing anyone else’s smile, as well as deforming their poor little ears), yeah, the pandemic is over.

I fully understand that anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. But people since the dawn of time have lived their lives based on the former, not the latter.

When your anti-vaxxer neighbors all get infected and yet are no sicker than your fully vaxxed family, yeah, it doesn’t provide a great boost of confidence in the efficacy of boosters or in the utility of advocating for them. Or when your most cautious, isolating, wiping-down-pickle-jars-with-disinfectant friends are still getting infected left and right along with their children, yeah, everyone’s pretty over these stupid fucking cloth masks that do nothing to prevent spread.

Vaccines are free and widely available and have been for months. I’m a huge proponent, and I highly encourage anyone still unvaxxed to go get their jab ASAP. For it very well may be the difference between a nasty cold and dying. The science is unequivocal. Yet anyone who still chooses to forgo vaccination, that’s on them.

As for the rest of us, something that kills one quarter of one percent of people is no longer worth perpetually cowering in fear and destroying our way of life over.

Why should those who have done the right thing continue to get punished and treated no differently than those who haven’t? Why does the law require the fully vaccinated to still mask? How is that sensible or just? How does that incentivize good behavior? Who are we trying to protect? A bunch of obstinate, ignorant assholes?

Anyone that wants to hide under a rock for the rest of their life is more than welcome to do so. But for those of us who are tired of it, we’re done. Take this as your official notice. And if you don’t like it and want to get in our faces about it, please do. I, for one, will be more than happy to cough on yours.

It’s about time we as a society took a hard look at our economic system that’s driving an ever-increasing wealth disparity and a general ennui and nihilism about the pointlessness of so many careers. It’s about time people began trying out new forms of romantic partnership and cohabitation. It’s about time we start having concerts, and parties, and barbecues again, and that we’re allowed to decide for ourselves our personal risk tolerance and willingness to take chances.

Because to do everything expected of you, and still get fucked over, and then continue to do it anyway because it’s what’s expected of you, is a slave mentality. A free and rational reaction is to do whatever you want — whatever feels right and whatever sounds fun.

So let this essay be a big “fuck you” to anyone who tries to tell me how I’m supposed to act, or about what’s proper and expected. Go pound sand you would-be socio-cultural fascists. I’m done. I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore. And neither should you.

Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, and author of the freethinker children’s book The Stranger of Wigglesworth.

If you enjoy my writing and would like to receive stories by email whenever I publish, please click here.