Here’s Christmas in 2020. Lots to be grateful for - our health, our jobs, our home, our friends and family, and most importantly all the essential workers who have toiled and out their lives at risk so the rest of case can live 🌈. But also lots to be sad about. For me, notably - we’ve been on walks a few times the course of the year - and been dismayed many times over by the number of people who weren’t wearing masks 😷 or not wearing them properly, when there were clearly lots of people around. “A violation of my rights,” “It’s a faff,” “It fogs up my glasses,” “I don’t have covid,” etc, the excuses are endless. You know, the mask-wearing emoji existed BEFORE this pandemic, and the reason why is because all of Asia (where emoji’s were born) wears masks every year in flu season, to keep the virus from spreading. Everyone from preschool-attending kids to centenarian grandparents understand the benefits of wearing a mask. Regardless of what’s dictated by the govt and what’s not, the science and evidence was clear from Lockdown 1: Covid-19 travels through the air, and gets into your system. A mask (and washing hands, and social distancing, for that matter) helps prevent the virus from spreading, both from you, and to you. But not everyone here understood or accepted that, and it continues to baffle me. Well, whether or not we like it, this Christmas in this country, this is the price we have collectively agreed to pay: in the face of a new viral variant (inevitable) we are now spending each household on their own, in their own unit; and make no mistake, those civil liberties are intact, our glasses crystal clear, and nothing and no one to care about except our own selves - this is what we wanted, right? The irony that it is Christmas we’re talking about, is not lost (and as a side note: the Muslim community went thru something similar for Eid so we don’t really have legs to stand on whining about what’s happening to Christmas). Something like this would call for what the Japanese call 反省 - “hansei” - the act of self-reflection, acknowledgement of mistakes made, and a pledge for improvement. We as a country should have plenty of time to do that this year-end. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJEE8Runim3SLbnY-SwJeBBdxNKn9bb73VOayk0/?igshid=rjq5pcjvj2kr
