We were meant to enjoy life. That’s why God gave it to us. We are not meant to spend our lives in fear. That’s why He gave us His Son. Fear not! So, our only problem in this life is deciding on how to enjoy it. That’s where our senses come into play.
Our senses are meant to receive messages from our surroundings. And to reply in kind. So the question becomes this: will we receive the intended messages He sends us? Or are we intent on receiving others? In which case, what is the meaning of our response to these ‘other’ messages? Will our response be fearful?
While the specific reason I am writing today is the coronavirus fear-pandemic, the core lesson applies everywhere at all times. But let’s look at this one specific example. You’ll notice that I am linking the pandemic to fear. That is the real problem. It’s abundantly clear to anyone who has chosen to actually parse the numbers https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/30013/ . Unmitigated fear seems to be everywhere. But just look at those charts of actual pandemic outbreaks over the long historic horizon. This current ‘pandemic’ is nothing compared to actual pandemics from the past. Today’s problem pales, as a pimple to a mountain, when viewed in the light of history.
Because according to the current usage, acne is a pandemic. After all, so many people get it. And survive it. Herein lies the first problem, semantics. There is so little understanding of the meaning of words today. A word is used carelessly and a wave of fear descends upon us. Why? Because no one has any historical reference because we have been raised by wolves. Raised to accept, at face value, anything we are told from above. Or below, depending on your (my) outlook.
But let’s not stray here. Let’s get to the point. We have been bred to accept anything our rulers tell us. And they are telling us that if we don’t do exactly what they say, then we’re all gonna die!
News flash. We are all going to die. Don’t take my word for it. Ask all those people hanging out in cemeteries. Or read the obituary column (the only believable content in most newspapers today). Is the historical fact of universal imminent death a problem for you? Are you not prepared to die? Today? No? Why is that, friend?
Let’s get back to the messages our senses keep bringing us. And our responses to them. Have we lost sight of certain sights? Sights of death, all around us? It happens every day, in so many ways. Sights we spend all our time avoiding. In the end, these messages will be received. They are all alike. A single person is separated, body from soul. That’s all death is.
If you think that death is an eternal separation of matter and spirit, then yes, I can see why you might have a problem thinking about this matter. Matter is the only thing that matters to you. You can’t see the larger message. And this leads to the problem of hopelessness. In spite of Obama.
On the other hand, if you think that this separation known as death is only temporary (but not in the Hindu sense), then maybe there is something to be hoped for beyond death. That hope is what allows us to see the messages that surround us in a different light from those hopeless ones around us.
Am I callously saying we should let people die, indiscriminately? That zero effort should be made to save anyone, for any reason? Well, what the Hell do you think? Are you really that stupid? Or are you just an AP writer for the New York Times?
On the other hand, which is more important, to save someone spiritually or physically? Of course, if you don’t believe in the afterlife, then the answer is clear. But if you do see this difference, then the first thing you must do is to clarify things for those somehow at risk of anything physically evil. You must weigh the relative importance of the physical life versus the spiritual life.
In other words, is it worth everything (including the afterlife) to extend a pleasurable physical life here and now, cost-be-damned?By the way, just who is it that will pay this cost of saving (for a while) your somehow precious life? And just how pleasant is this somehow-extended life anyway?
Let’s look at the cost of attempting to extend life, at all cost, and who will pay this cost. There are two groups who will pay. The first is everyone but you. Sometimes known as taxpayers, generally speaking, whether current or future in tense. In other words, your neighbors and your family. They must pay to keep you alive, without your participation in that thing we call work. But if they aren’t working either, how is this sustainable? Doesn’t this simply accelerate everyone’s demise? Does anyone but George Soros approve of this?
I’m not focused on that group today, even though I belong to that same group. No, my focus today is on the second group that must sacrifice to keep you physically alive. And that group is a very small one. In fact, it is composed of only one person—YOU!
Here’s the question, my friend. What price are you willing to pay for an extended stay above ground? Nothing’s totally free, you know.Let’s tally up the cost of your frenetic desire to avoid the unavoidable. That is, your demise. Specifically, your demise from coronavirus.
Are you willing to give up your family? Read Brett Stephens pitiful piece in the NY Times. Tell me he hasn’t abandoned his mother. I know lots of cases where grandparents can’t enjoy their grandkids. Where even spouses avoid contact with each other, and their own kids! And everyone else in their pre-Corona lives.
Not to mention the need to avoid all other human contact. Sure, Komrade, you can go to the grocery store. Once a week. But keep away from everyone. And go straight home. Immediately. Don’t think about talking to neighbors. Don’t try to gather in groups larger than five. Hell, I know families that would have to be divided into four groups based on that ridiculous stricture! I came from one!
Have you seen where the Internet and Cell-Phone Overlords are willing to report your movements and web browsing and purchases to Big Nanny? So that if you are not adhering to the demands of the MacroState (and their idea of physical and mental health), you may be denied access to commerce (money)? Yes, the same Overlords who prize the China market so very much that they are willing to parrot the Party line whenever Beijing speaks. If NBA games are banned in China, guess where they are banned next? But don’t think the NBA ban is all that’s coming.
No, we’re all Chinese now. Unless we start behaving like Hong Kong did. By the way, have you noticed what quelled those demonstrations? Yep. Public Health, at all costs!
What is to be done, Komrade? How do we escape the noose of living robotic lives that are in every sense un-human? How do we keep from becoming robots ourselves? How do we free ourselves from someone, somewhere, hitting the ‘pause’ button that makes life un-enjoyable? Even un-livable?
Simple answer. Enjoy yourselves. But to do it in a way that preserves your hope for a better (un-ending) day. A day in which there is no virus, of any kind. A day in which there is no Overlord seeking to make you their captive. A day in which you are an adopted son of God and not a sub-human slave to another man (and his demonic master).
If your senses were meant to bring you messages, what is the message your senses detect in an environment we now call ‘lock-down’? I perceive it. It’s not very pretty. I reject it, un-categorically.
On the other hand, what messages can you receive when you leave quarantine and you go out to enjoy God’s creation and all those that are in it? When you open yourself up to the original message He sent us (the creation), think of the messages of thankfulness you can send back. Return-messages that will earn you the right to hope in a better, un-ending day.
How do you do re-gain your freedom? Simple. Just take it back. Go out for a ride. Several times a day. Go for a walk. A long one. And talk to people, close up. Have friends over for dinner. Talk over the back fence. Go to the grocery store (or any other store open), even if just to browse. Do it every day. Again and again. In other words, break the quarantine.
Yes, you may pay a price. You might even get a ticket of some kind. Nothing is free, you know. At least, nothing worth having. That’s the real question. What is worth really having? If even a large minority of people do this, how in the world can the cops keep order? How can they enforce the New World Corona-Order?
Yes, it takes faith to believe in the messages He has given us, both on the sixth day (our creation), but more importantly, on the seventh day, His re-Creation. That day is coming up. It’s called Easter. The new first day. The day the big lock-down ended, and Purgatory was emptied.
If you want to be able to enjoy that new day, and all the hope inherent in it, you need to get to work, subverting the message of The Overlords. Go out and enjoy yourselves! Show them that you don’t care what they think. That you don’t think what they think. And that you have hopes that transcend anything they can deliver in this ‘lock-down’ nirvana of perpetual-but-un-enjoyable life.
For all those of you who cannot comprehend this message of faith that brings hope, let me remind you of something. You always say you cannot imagine this world I inhabit. This world that includes but also transcends the merely physical world of matter. Where something greater than matter matters, quite literally. That, as a materialist, you can’t believe in something as weird as Purgatory after a life on earth. Well, I’ve got news for you, friend. You’re already there. It’s called Lock-Down.
If you don’t join the rest of us in denying the godhood of the human Overlords, then this thoroughly un-enjoyable state you are willing to acquiesce to will become hopelessly permanent. Which will make it indistinguishable from Hell.
Tell me again, Komrade, just what it is you believe in. And then tell me why.
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“By the way, have you noticed what quelled those demonstrations? Yep. Public health at all costs!” Yeah and that might have been the intended or pre planned effect from the Chinese communist government to do so considering how they were covering up the virus and suppressing information about it for the first few months of its rise which also allowed it to spread around the world. Time to quit trading with China or at least being so dependent on them for things. Their socialist government one way or another is a complete mess.
Yes, let us join the other 50% of humanity deemed “necessary” to make sure the our prison is well stocked, the electricity works, law and order is kept, the land is farmed, etc. Why are we so lucky??
It’s not fear, Ianto. It is responsibility. Fear is being risk-averse to risks to oneself. I am risk-averse to accidentally killing an old person who is some kids belowed grandparent.
I am in a tougher situation than most of you, because the lockdown separates from my wife and kid. We thought having a family home in one EU country and working in another one in 1.5 hours of driving distances is doable, by weekend commuting, could even be doable by daily commuting. I fully admit I was stupid – I believed the hype that Intra-EU borders do not matter anymore. That’s because the original idea, that of the Dublin Treaty, was that the price for borders not mattering inside is that the outer borders gonna be guarded super tightly, like how Orban does it. I should have realized, at the point when they starting giving shit to Orban for actually upholding the Dublin Treaty, that the likely result will be that internal borders will have a comeback.
Still, life is tolerable. Skype Video with my family every day is FAR better than e.g. what sailors on the oceans had two decades ago. Or troops in Iraq.
And there is a long reading list to catch up on. And, I admit, some videogaming list. 99% of videogames are stupid but there are ones giving you a fairly realistic simulation of something you would likely not try in real life, like flying a plane, or cannot try in real life, like Medieval life (Kingdom Come: Deliverance, or Bannerlord and its hopefully quickly upcoming real-history mods.)
Most of you are locked in with your family. That should be tolerable. People on their deathbed generally wish they spent more time with their family. Just do it.
Have no fear. But do not be irresponsible either. Do not cause the death of some kids beloved grandpa or grandma.
Damn, this sound too much like a virtue-signal. I have always been an introvert anyway. I do realize it is far harder for extroverts.
“A friend of mine said this about the Chinese: “I suppose they are proud they conquered the world with a virus and fear and never had to leave their country.””
Of course they needed the America-hating media and Democrats on their side. The shutdown is GOVERNORS of states, no less. Think about it–your governor HATES your life and your success and will lock you in a cage like a freaking hamster to rule over you. Worse yet, you stay in the cage just as obediently as the hamster. (Though there have been some cages breached in some states, which gives hope.)
Another friend called and said with my “health issues”, my husband should be leaving his clothing on the porch or immediately into hot water in the washer, and we should be installing UV lights everwhere. No one realizes my husband is the one with significantly decreased lung function, another huge “risk” factor. Apparently, risk is based on whatever the person thinks they know about others. Also, the person relating this information has had multiple surgeries in the past five years and is three years older than my husband. I have to assume he’s home, locked in with UV lamps everywhere and his wife leaving all her clothes in the washer immediately when coming in from outside. Though I doubt that’s true.
I will note that not visiting my mother-in-law, who is 93, makes sense. She is very susceptible. Grandkids are not. Reason is not being applied here, just dictatorial power over the sheep. Grandma can be visited if there’s a window or storm door between you and Grandma. It’s not great, but it’s something. Really, people with flu should not be visiting Grandma either. It’s just common sense. (Of course, flu doesn’t last 4 months and shut down the planet, but you get the idea.)
My greatest fear at this point is when the shamans decide to burn the teepees to the ground to drive out the evil spirits. Or the wagon master burns the wagons to drive out the illness. We’ve already torched the economy, physical buildings are probably next. I call this the “Stupid Virus” because it show just how incredibly, mind-boggling stupid humans have become, worldwide.
We should be exposing all the kids as much as possible, seeing as how exactly none of them are getting seriously ill and dying from the Kung Flu. Just like with chicken pox, it’s more dangerous the older you are.
Life inevitably requires courage. You talk only about fear.
Courage, its opposite, is not a popular talking point these days.
It’s spelled GUTS.
Bard Watt wrote:
”But let’s not stray here. Let’s get to the point.“
Hah! When have you ever done that? And what fun would that be? Half the charm of your yarning is rambling down grand vistas with great ruins and obscure detours and colorful characters. And what is that odd instrument you play while you sing? It looks like a cross between a zither and a contra bass clarinet. Remarkable how you can sip your drink while playing and singing and never miss a note. You must have learned that from Homer himself. Pardon the interruption, Now back to reading your ramble.
As a multiple grand-dad with reduced lung function, I am well aware that physical contact with them could easily be “the death of me” (to use that phrase exasperated mums sometimes use). Yet the physical contact and play is the best part, online chats being a poor substitute – most of the grand-kids are under age 10. And I think for them too, it’s something they really like. The self-isolation cannot go on indefinitely. Mr (I presume) Watt has a point and statistically this is not a horrific virus. Though, of course, I do not consider myself a statistic. Lots to ponder, trading off a longer (by how much?) but highly likely government-induced miserable life socially, politically and financially against the continuing immediate pleasure of normal contact, association and freedom of movement.
What the Dividualist said. I’m in late middle age, a non-smoker, and very healthy for my age. I’m not afraid of getting the disease nearly as much as I am afraid of giving it to my 83-year-old father in law, his 88-year-old girlfriend (I call her my significant other in law), and my 80-year-old mother, who has lung issues. This thing is for real folks. It can kill people you love. Complacency vis a vis COVID-19 is as much a vice as excessive fear.
When I was a kid growing up in the late 50s/early 60s, I always wondered how the Communist governments controlled their people. because, after all, there were so many more of them then their military and police.
The answer was FEAR.
Instill fear and you can make them do anything.
It’s the 8th day, Watt; He rested on the 7th (from His work and in the tomb).
Do we live in fear of suffering and death or do we live in hope and trust in God? The governments –federal,state and local–with the shutdowns of human relationships have robbed us of ability to worship God in our churches, to mourn the deaths of our loved ones–no funerals–to celebrate weddings, baptisms and, in general, any type of family and friend gatherings and deprived way too many people of their jobs and livelihoods.
Another lone voice…
Corona-Krise: Offener Brief an die Bundeskanzlerin von Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=13&v=LsExPrHCHbw&feature=emb_logo
Common sense enters the equation …
Perspectives on the Pandemic | Dr John Ioannidis of Stanford University | Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6MZy-2fcBw
The more we live in Jesus Christ, the more our hearts are free.
HE said, “Fear is useless, what is needed is trust.”
Do use the measures of washing hands … maybe for a minute even.
Cough or sneeze into sleeve or tissue and definitely away from anyone near.
Do not touch the face, especially the nose….especially the whole thing!!!
Maintain the 6 feet distance for others’ comfort if not one’s own.
Get proper sleep so mental and emotional well-being continues.
Shop as needed.
Visit as is comfortable for all.
Look to Jesus and His Father for every help.
Fear can kill the spirit as the article said.
All of this takes practice, I have found. But I have also found that I flounder terribly, sliding down towards fear, if I do not Ask God for His Holy Spirit helps.
Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Here we go!!!!
God bless, C-Marie
What is life after all? It is a temporary dream, nothing more. Death is nothing but a sleep and another dream. I am not sorry for those who die on the battlefields, because for them the dream of torture is over. But I grieve for the wounded, because pain is a dreadful nightmare.
Though God has everything, we can still say that He has some desire. He wants to see who will remain unintimidated by this song and dance, and who will play his part well and come back to Him.
We must realise that to find God is the only goal, the only purpose, for which we are here. For Him alone we exist and must find. And Him you can know by continuously seeking Him; by steadfastness in your mind, harmony in your life, evenness in your temperament; by finding fault not with others but with yourself; by schooling yourself in the path of wisdom; by being humble, ever loyal to your friends and benefactors, cooperating always with good and resisting evil, helping others, giving strength and understanding along the way — this is the royal way of living, the real way that leads to God. Fame, wealth, plaudits, awards, recognition and emoluments don’t matter.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/statue-of-ancient-god-of-child-sacrifice-put-on-display-in-rome-days-before-amazon-synod
Ianto…
Yea they’re not even trying to hide it any more hope you caught the
opening of the Gotthard Massif tunnel opening all passed off as harmless
folklore and art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4NU0Tok1T4
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak
Boy that John Snow is on his way to hell.