It’s hard to fight something microscopic- in fact, it’s hard to have any feelings at all towards something you can’t see. And yet, I find it easy to hate this virus that has wreaked havoc on our society. When I say it’s thrown my entire life out of balance, I feel as though I am being callous and spoiled because while people are close to death, I complain about missing my friends. I am a first-world person with first-world problems, but this awareness I have is not any more reassuring. I cannot do anything to help the uninsured homeless who are turned away from hospitals and quarantined in their cars. I cannot step outside my house to volunteer at shelters and hospitals and soup kitchens. This truth has sobered me, so that I can’t enjoy this break from school, because of the knowledge that many others will not be able to. Does this make me self-aware, or just another fortunate person embarrassed about their luck? We sit in our ivory towers and send our best wishes to those who still work- cashiers, delivery drivers, fast food workers- calling them heroes instead of people, so we don’t feel as guilty when they’re exposed to danger for a paycheck. We mustn’t take the blame for an act of nature, but we must remember that the pandemic began because of our eating habits, and continued because so many of us refused to stay inside until it was too late. If we do not think about these facts, then tragedy will inevitably strike again because no matter how much history repeats itself, it seems as though we never really learn from our mistakes. I don’t think that this is pessimism, but rather, reality. If we don’t think about these things now, I fear that our society will become desensitized to catastrophe. We will not be able to recognize the fact that millions of people who live off of day-to-day wages are going hungry now that the virus has struck, that Chinese-Americans are being shunned from a country they call home. We will be preoccupied with our own, minuscule struggles. But still, hope lingers and positive things come out of even the most devastating events. Perhaps something as drastic as a reformed healthcare system and climate awareness, or something as simple as more time spent on a hobby. Perhaps this virus will bring us together in ways that we would have never imagined. Even I, a teenager preoccupied with friends and school, can see the split that runs through society, an ugly chasm that cuts between groups. Maybe this tragedy will unite us and finally seal the fissure between partially-formed ideologies. Maybe our idea of heroism will change, and we will respect the janitors and mail carriers who are only seen as “essential workers” in a pandemic. Like a phoenix, maybe we will rise from the ashes, both self-aware and strong enough to act on that awareness.
