Are you going to be one of those people still wearing a mask after COVID? Not likely the medical kind, the crappy, a-couple-of-uses-only one. No, the people who will still wear a mask after COVID will be wearing the fake GUCCI bedazzled masks or the cheetah or tiger print. Maybe even a couple of super-hero ones thrown in the mix. Will these people all dress the same? Nope. They will be from all different walks of life. All different demographics, ethnicities, genders, social classes, ages, house sizes, jackets and sweaters, and belts and buckles. And despite all those differences, they will have one thing in common.
It seems to be a balance, generally speaking, between three different types of fear. The first is related to actual health reasons. Sure, yeah, we get it, you have an auto-immune disorder, you’re high risk. But we’re not in 2020 anymore, this is 2022. The vaccine is out, upped to a 98% immunization rate. If you’re scared of that 2% failing you, you might as well go live in a bubble, need I elaborate? The second is about the fear of others. Or rather, your projections of them. Relying on a mask to save you from the clutches of inadequacy, whether they be true or fictitious, is a horrible idea, it will not work. To try and wear it to stand out as a fashion statement will only be an act of attention-seeking meant to solve for the inadequacy around others you feel inside. The arguments for wearing them falling into that same category as well. The third is a type of fear that is more human – and common – than anything. The majority of the people who’ll wear masks after COVID will be people being afraid to let go.
The majority of people have never been through anything like this. To have the shelves be empty, all the damn toilet paper disappearing, a limit to the number of frozen pizzas you could buy, (so far it sounds like World War 2 rationing – changing the pizza to Shepard’s pies – but bare with me), masks inside buildings, maintain 6ft or 2-meter distance please, dirty staredowns between people wearing the mask and keeping respectable social distance and those breaking the law. You can never tell which is which in that scenario either, apart from the obvious: chain-smokers and cat lovers. But when discerning if an elderly lady is pro-regulation or pro-do-whatever-the-hell-you-want, you haven’t the slightest clue. She could be the one reaching past and over and in between your legs to get the 3% milk or the one staring that person down from afar, her head tilted and glasses enlarging her already wide eyes, on the tip of her toes ready to tell the first stock clerk she sees. And those aren’t even the big problems. The day to day banter of the common grandma is about to get debauched by national debt, unemployment, suicide, and both types of depressions (if not now already then soon). The history books will be including this in Chapter 2’s take-home questions for centuries. How lending constant money is not a solution – let alone printing it, how to properly prepare and store fresh meat, how to have a work-life balance, the shakiness of government influenced capitalism, how nutrition and health should have been advertised more, rather than only wearing a mask and keeping social distance. Sunlight and exercise should have been the motto. And how all entertainment outlets pounced on the latest COVID case announcements and seemingly forgot about everything else. Such as climate change, poverty, unemployment, suicide & depression, addiction, and Elon Musk putting computer chips in our skulls. This is going to be some of the most interesting and engaging times of people’s lives. The others who can’t wait for it to be over will throw away all memory of this time, but those who can’t wait for it to be over and are lying, only saying it to bring about how hard their easy life has been, will wear masks long after is necessary. While the people who lost a loved one, or lost a home, watch. Seeing right through the virtue-signalling.
Once this is all over, and the world has gone back to its original craziness – basically everything but the word COVID being involved – then people who are afraid to lose the meaning and purpose they gained throughout these troubling times will hold on to it. The same reason why people refuse to wear masks now. Afraid of different and are too attached to themselves. Whether or not they’re new or old kept ideas and customs, the attachment and fear of change keeps them idled. Their ideas, ways of doing things, since they were always done that way – as long as they were born, often forgetting the time before their birth – or because I just really like it this way. Attachment to this new idea they’ve given themselves too. A mask. Something eventful happened in their life, and even though it had nothing to do with them, they have already attached themselves to it. For months and months, in and out of these lockdowns. Because the buckets in which we are able to place our balls of purpose in are becoming fewer and fewer. What does that say about what we’ve come to? What we value? Nevertheless, though the numbers of continuing mask wearers will be small, as they dwindle year by year, the fear finding another outlet, the number will eventually die down… hoping to be forgotten by more than a few… until there is all but one left. Who may then be considered an icon and a genius.
WritingbyJordan 