The Fearful and the Fearless — Part 1

Or the new demons — within and without — we’ve encountered

The other day I read an interview with a famous Mexican writer, and it struck me that what she fears most about the pandemic is not dying per se, but our lives never coming back. That is also what I fear the most, and yet I strongly believe that will be the case. Evidence has shown us that to hope otherwise is naive. This, too, shall pass… but — at least for a long time — life will irremediably be different. And so will we.

The funny thing is that, on the one hand, there are way too many people who haven’t realized, accepted, or understood that this is no prank, joke, plot. The sad thing is that, on the other, some are panicking in excess. Or are they not?

The fearful

Some in this category are the people that were fearful anyway, even before the pandemic. The ones who foresee terrible things happening at every corner, in every sense. These are the ones that take no risks and stay with the known path. Among them is the sub-group of the ones particularly suspicious of being infected: they see germs and bacteria and viruses on everything — which is true, there they are, always, but they’re truly not normally harmful, just there, literally sitting there but innocuous 99% of the time for 99% of the people.

I’m not in this cluster, but have you ever seen that video of an experiment conducted in Japan using fluorescent paint? It is so explicit at proving that the virus was all over in seconds, without us detecting it at plain sight: it was all over the place! You don’t need to have any phobia or disorder regarding viruses because this very one is like no other in our lifetimes: it has proven to be a Russian-roulette virus, everywhere or nowhere at the same time. Invisible and silent.

“There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls.” — Aeschylus

We can also add the people who are afraid of crowded indoor scenarios. Probably, again, they were already afraid of any kind of crowds where social distancing cannot be guaranteed (even before the term became sadly so trendy). But I cannot imagine myself using the subway, not just yet. I never had problems with this before — even if overly insufficient, the subway system in my city is very effective. Yet, the minimum vital space cannot be met, simply put. Oh boy!

However, there's even a more serious situation that is making a lot of people feel uneasy: resuming in-person schools. Most parents, if not all, are desperate for the traditional back-to-school times — oh, the preparation, the uniforms, the school materials, the backpacks. The expenses are normally high but the expectation of the freedom through the back-to-school scenario was a strong hope, of course, after keeping the kids at home, ‘studying’ online, for so long!

But some are extremely afraid of it, and they’re right to be afraid! The conditions required for a safe — and lasting — reopening of schools can almost only be met in well-off countries where there can be proper social distancing schemes, such as Norway’s use of cohorts controlling the number of children per group and the interaction between cohorts.

The number of interactions possible is huge even if unnoticed in regular conditions: A child who has 2 siblings takes classes in a room with 20 kids with similar households, 2–3 siblings plus 2 parents. Their siblings are also exposed to comparable classrooms and such households. It’s simple arithmetic. The number of probable interactions is enormous.

That is why some teachers have been thinking seriously about early retirement — even if that implies reducing their incomes — because it’ll be too risky to go back to such a petri-dish-like environment, being middle-aged people. I read about one teacher in her late 50’s, with a newborn grandchild, and a live-in elderly parent. I’d really be panicky, even if that’s not ‘the true me’, panicky. At least I didn’t use to be, you see.

But, well, most of this world is no Norway, right? These great solutions are feasible in a tiny bit of the tiny universe we call Earth. Of course, only some can retire. Most do not have that chance, so the vast majority of teachers continue working under adverse extreme conditions: either working in a highly risky environment or teaching online with all the highly difficult implications. Not an easy dichotomy. Neither option what parents, kids, and teachers were hoping for after the Summer. Neither option danger-free.

Because not resuming in-person classes is not only going to leave a whole generation behind academically speaking — and making inequality more evident than ever — but also, even in the best and the most perfect worlds, it’s going to isolate children from their classmates and their teachers for who-knows-how-much longer — in front of screens. That’s another thing to be afraid of: Losing the mental, emotional, and social conditions to support psychological structure and development.

One more fear parents and teachers have — of course, the ones who didn’t spend the Summer in very crowded beaches without masks, right? That means a big portion of the population falls into this category of fearfulness. I’m not a mother of young children anymore, nor a teacher, but I’ve been both and I’m aware of what these parents — mothers mostly — and teachers have endured, and I take off my hat for them while I cannot help but feel troubled for all the people who have had to go through this particular ordeal.

Apart from the very tangible and evident panoramas mentioned above, here come two other issues that are frightening people even if they're not aware yet, or cannot speak up about them. Some of us are dreading both the emotional toll this is having on all of us, and the huge economic regression — I’m no expert in the economy, but you don’t have to be one. It’s just common sense.

Of course, I have to pause here as I always do when I reach this moral dilemma — of me concerned about trivial matters compared to the losses and needs of most people in the world. But that doesn’t spare us the necessity to acknowledge that both the psychological and economic states we’re all in — regardless of the disproportionate degrees — should be addressed.

Like with anything to be solved or resolved, first one has to acknowledge it. Even if we try to keep our spirits high and think positively and take advantage of the opportunities and expect the world to have learned some lessons and… Well, one would need to be a martian to not have developed some fears, toxic emotions, anxieties, depression. We’ve lost a lot already in this area.

So one should become aware of this and find ways to cope, ranging from the easy simple ones — such as exercise, meditation, crafts — to considering seeking professional help. Just as you go to the doctor for a rash that won’t go away with the eternal ointment that you keep in the bathroom drawer, just like that — but even for greater reasons — one should speak up and go to a doctor of the mind.

Either extreme isolation or extreme togetherness keeps piling up as months drag by, one after the other, and the outlooks of the future keep failing to meet our needs and dreams. This thing is taking a toll, and we all should at the very least become aware of it and find ways to deal with it — be it the fear regarding the virus itself, or the crowds, or the lack of money, or the troubles of the mind. We shouldn't ignore these dreads, disregard them, disclaim them. Or else, they will mess up with us eventually, if not yet. Not by disclaiming them will they not exist, you know?

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.’’ — Marie Curie

When I said at the beginning that I too was not afraid of death itself, I said it regardless of me not having a very good relationship with aging, being prone to excessive physical deterioration. And yet, what I fear most is never holding again my precious riches: hugging and kissing my granddaughter who lives on another continent, my son postponing his wedding again, not ever reopening my business, not living the life I had planned for my golden years, which are nearing me faster than I had hoped.

What do you fear, my dear reader? Become aware, I suggest… and I wish you well.