I have a new theory about why COVID has been so devastating, both physically and to our national discourse.
COVID, in a brilliant bit of evolution, causes humans to want to stay inside 24/7, out of the dangers of sunlight which might improve our vitamin D levels or (if you don’t believe that matters) at least make us more physically and mentally fit. As such, it is able to survive, thrive and be passed on more easily.
By a happy coincidence of history, technology and virology, we are all quarantined inside where the virus remains uninhibited by UV light, vitamin D or innate fitness of its human hosts. While inside, fretful and unhappy, we spend our quarantine fearful of leaving our houses or apartments. So what do we do?
We go on social media! There we argue about what is most on our mind, that is, COVID and politics. Because opinions are never changed by social media, and because we still hope to change minds (and have nothing else to do), we stay on our computers. And if you track behaviors of your friends, family and detractors, you will notice that they seem to post almost around the clock.
So, lacking not only sunlight and its benefits, preferring dispute to exercise or the delights of happy silence, we have all become less happy and thus our immunity likely diminishes further, since physical and mental health are clearly connected.
The modern world, ‘blessed’ by the Internet and the madness of social media, creates overweight, out of shape moderns who do not do the very few, low-tech things that might make them more resistant to such a nasty, clever virus. And in the process, the virus and our collective and individual responses to it, lead us all to do more of the same in a positively reinforcing cycle. Making us, incidentally, that much more miserable and irascible than ever and causing further division among humans who a few years ago might have found a way to tolerate one another despite disagreement.
And there it is! Now, how to tie it in to methamphetamine. Because based on my work life, I’d say COVID must like for humans to use Meth…
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