We're going to have to change our evil ways, baby!

Virus protection and Life goes on

I used to be blasé about taking a bath. One of life's little pleasures, the feeling of being clean, almost renewed, I took for granted. It is no revelation that our lives are shaped and formed and certainly coddled by the many small, and some not so small, things we take for granted.

Take my bath example (Uh, metaphorically not literally because taking a bath via proxy is not as nice.)

When taking a bath one takes so many little things for granted. First, that as soon as you turn the faucet water will flow, that the water will be hot because there will be gas to heat it, and that there will be enough water for you to even sing a few songs while you are bathing.

You also take it for granted that the drain will work and that you won't have to stand in 30 centimeters of soapy, dirty water. Of course you take for granted that the shampoo, and bar of soap, and conditioner will be there when you reach out for them because later in the day you took it for granted that the new online shopping service would work as advertised and they delivered all of these good and more to your doorstep.

Once you are done singing arias from "The Barber of Seville" and you have shut off the water, another chain of events that you also take for granted have furnished you with a clean, fresh, disinfected towels for you to dry your now paunchy body with. Never mind the long chain of events that allowed the washing machine to work, and the chain of events that produced the washing liquid that you used to wash the towel. And what about the lovely sunshine that dried the washed towel? Surely the sunshine is something that we take for granted, especially as the wonderfully clear sky over Mexico City is now. We had taken the smoggy air and sky as normal and forgotten what a beautiful, smog free air and sky are like. As I've said many times, no matter how hard we humans have tried to ruin the climate in Mexico City, it is still spring-like most of the year, and especially now.

So, once out of the bath and decently clothed, another set of things that I take for granted begin to make my interment more tolerable: I assume there will be electricity for me to heat water for my coffee, and so that I can sit and write this, and so that I can read some news, and so on.

There is one thing we have to remember midst all the doom and gloom news we get bombarded with every day: Life does not stop, it changes and evolves to fit the circumstances. Just ask the Corona Virus. We have not survived as a species because we are dull-witted and cannot adjust to new circumstances. We have survived because we are brilliant at discovering, inventing, creating, all the thousand things that work so well that we take them for granted.

So, we will get through this by discovering, inventing, creating things that will allows us to defeat the virus and which we will later on take for granted. But, perhaps we should stop to think a bit and reflect that this is Nature's way of saying to us "You have to change your evil ways, baby," like in that Santana song.

As children, we took it for granted that our parents would always be there until illness or age took them away. Now we take it for granted that our brothers and sisters, cousins, and friends are always there for us to talk to, give a hug or a kiss, ask for help or consolation, until the virus takes them away. Many of us always assumed that going to the office or factory to work was the natural thing to do, never mind the pollution and congestion, the stress and worry this caused. The virus took that away and LO AND BEHOLD! It turned out to be a good thing!

It's time we take stock of the things we take for granted, of the people we take for granted, of our ability to adjust to new circumstances which we take for granted.

Imagine just one thing: Imagine that all the office workers in Mexico City didn't have to go to the office everyday, just once a week. And that they could substitute even that day for a working lunch or dinner with a client or business colleague. How much pollution and traffic would that curtail?

We're going to have to change our evil ways, baby!