I reckon an individual’s response to the pandemic has a lot to do with how much money they had growing up.
If you grew up poor, you understand the concept of endurance.
Poverty isn’t something you can ignore, or change overnight. It colors every decision you make, right down to the basics. You still hear people talking about it: “food, or rent?” Which of the absolute basics of survival do you prioritize today?
And think about that for a second: which do you prioritize TODAY. Because tomorrow, you’re going to have to make that choice again. Over and over. And over. Every day. Every. Day. Poverty, man. It really fucks with your ability to focus on anything other than what is absolutely and immediately in front of you. Every day. Forget about studying.
And there’s nothing you can do about it. Except endure.
At best, you hope you can outlast that shit; and if you work your ass off, and get really lucky, and don’t get screwed by some rich, scheming, corporate s.o.b., maybe you can escape that crushing grind for mere survival. Maybe. Someday. In the meantime, all you can do is endure. “Keep on keepin’ on.”
And that brings us back to pandemic response. All these people out there “protesting” over masks and lockdowns? Man, they never had to endure anything in their fat, privileged lives before. The worst they ever had to endure was not getting the exact car they wanted for their sixteenth birthday. Maybe they had to endure the ridicule of not getting some designer purse the first week it was available. Oh, that’s fucking ROUGH! How *did* you do it?
Nah, see, poor people, they know how to endure in the face of huge, outside conditions over which they have absolutely zero control. “Oh, some shit is going on that I can’t just wish away? Well, guess I’ll just get by. One way or another. I guess in this case that means wearing a mask. Fine. And not going to the beach. Done.”
They are going to endure this shit, just like all the rest of the shit in their lives, because it’s the only thing they can do.
Now, don’t get get me wrong. Endurance is *not* surrender. Poor people don’t blindly and baldy accept that this is the way it’s always going to be. They know poverty ain’t the way it *has* to be. You can work for change. You *have* to work for change. But slowly. Quietly. With the knowledge that it’s going to take a long, long, long time. Maybe not even your own lifetime. But change will come. And you just have to endure the present circumstances as best you can.
And I guess this is the biggest argument against the analogy of poverty and pandemic – you can work, one way or another, to escape poverty. Because poverty is a socially imposed condition. The rich actively work to keep the poor in their condition, and you *can* fight against people. You can eventually create real, actual change, either by working the system or by toppling it. But you can’t actively fight against a virus.
I’ll tell you what you do against that virus. You endure it.
You don’t just lay down and die. But neither do you go shouting at it or pretend it doesn’t exist.
What you do is you outlast that shit.
‘Cause in the end, it’s just one more little bit of shit in an already shit life.
