“According to Boccaccio, some men became abstemious and withdrew from outside human contact, while others did the opposite and indulged in all of life’s pleasures. They saw life as an ‘enormous joke’ and wanted to take advantage of the time they had remaining.”
“Some, like Camus, reach the conclusion that life is a meaningless struggle against death. Others, like Reade and Boccaccio, try to deal with the disaster and make sense of it somehow.”
These quotes really resonated with me. This morning I stumbled onto this Twitter thread by someone whom I believe is named Liz based on her username. She posted about a 2009 college paper she wrote about the historical response to the black plague.
And this specific part.
“Some, like Camus, reach the conclusion that life is a meaningless struggle against death.”
Yes.
I envy those who are able to ignore our current plague. All signs are pointing to another devastating COVID winter ahead. More death is coming.
If you’ll permit me to do so, I will offer one defense of my life-is-hopeless outlook. When it comes to “indulging in life’s pleasures,” I do believe my day-to-day is my favorite thing. Most of my days are spent at home with my fiancé Chris & our cats. I’ve been reorganizing my life post-corporate-layoff life so that I don’t wake up every day with a stomachache of anxiety over unread emails. I’m volunteering at a cat shelter. Enjoying the peace that comes with eating vegan. And clearing the sludge of the last few years out of my brain.
My days are better now than they were. Espresso in the morning. Hummus, pretzels, & a Coke for lunch. And lots of intellectual discussion with Chris throughout the day. Those are all the same as before. But they’re different now. Better.
I still freelance. I’m still connected to the corporate world. But we also run a small, online Lego re-sell store now and I wholeheartedly prefer this life to the one I was living in the beginning of 2022.
The death never stops. The ones from COVID, the ones not from COVID, and the ones that could have been COVID but we just don’t know for sure.
We lost Chris’ mom Aug 3. She died from pneumonia after a long battle with other health conditions. Her life was hard. In so many ways, our society failed her.
As COVID surges, I’m bracing to lose more lives, both directly and indirectly.
For now, I guess all we can really do is, “try to deal with the disaster and make sense of it somehow.” So let me know if you figure any of this out. I’d love to make sense of any of it.
