False Positives



CoVID-19  Day 38

I know my days see-sawed before the virus struck but the rhythm wasn’t so noticeable. We are all in a Mexican wave rising on the applause for NHS workers and sinking with latest death toll. CoVID-19 has its own rhythm but that’s not what drives our wave.

I was up two days ago then down again today. But while our mental health is more brittle under the constant stress of unknowing and lack physical contact, that only explains the rawness, not what drives the moods.

Life is a series of negotiations, playing cause against effect and actions against consequences

Earthquakes devastate communities but much less so when the building are built to withstand them. When you travel through Greece you see new homes constructed around frames that will move as a unit during an earthquake. When you build something hoping against acts of God you are living in denial; that you are not subject to the same laws as others; that you are a special case.

The Coronovirus outbreak and much of the crisis run on parallel lines, connected and interdependent but one is not the cause of the other. Its like saying my car stopped because it ran out of petrol when your petrol gauge wasn’t working and you just passed a petrol station. The fact that you’ve never run out of petrol before or that you have a large tank does not mean you are immune from breaking down.

In some cases the mental, physical and economic outcomes are directly related to the outbreak but never does one thing entirely explain the other. Rarely does that happen. Life is a series of negotiations, playing cause against effect and actions against consequences. There is not a proper opposite of truth or love just as hindsight is not really 20:20 and much of our wisdom is mostly to do with false positives.

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