To travel or not to travel, is that the question?
(By Hella Ahmed) We may have empathy, great collective interests to protect, a social conscience without falling into morale which can mean so many things under different perspectives, we can never be in someone else’s shoes.
The exasperated person who is afraid and does not want to admit it, who seemingly accepts the fear but holds responsible for it those who communicate or resonate its existence, is not always the poor one who has not done well financially, who did not graduate in school and who only knows the neighborhood tavern for a change of scenery. Same place, same stories. We’re stuck in our lives, even isolated at times, for a ton of complex reasons, and money is one of them. Right now, everyone is somehow stuck when it comes to getting away from home and those who travel anyway are taking risks.
Mr., let’s call him Rich, secluded himself in his golden bubble, he is not afraid of the virus, he likes to portray himself as being much more afraid of the vaccines meant to protect him from it. Why? Because he is vaccinated but lately, by his swimming pool, he found out that he was positive. He is not in intensive care and vaccinated twice, it is unlikely that he will sadly end up there, but he feels like he was violated by the contamination and fooled by those who assured him his body was going to be protected from the virus intrusion. He is now actively encouraging people to not get vaccinated although he has done it himself.
When you are well off, you travel for pleasure, to nourish your creativity and for business, but when you are poor, you can afford to be opposed to vaccination and be true to your opinion since you will go nowhere because you can not afford to travel for pleasure and business, would that be the logic? Now that he is positive, Mr. Rich is supposedly trying to make a point against the vaccines for the sake of freedom. Is he mobilizing the crowd into protecting the same freedom that he himself agreed to reduce a little by getting the vaccines since it was a forced choice in order to preserve his right to gain more freedom by traveling for pleasure, for creativity nourishment and for business that enriches?
When it’s not sanitary lockdown, isn’t being able to afford everything and traveling so as not to endure Groundhog Day in the neighborhood tavern a great freedom? Those who can afford to travel do not necessarily have good oral hygiene or a doctorate. A fairly wealthy man who last year saw carriers of the virus as scary or guilty of neglect called me back then a psychoanalyst thinking psychology was essentially just that. It was a very brief exchange that got a little bit out of hand since he was emotionally disconnected and very much in a hurry packing for another two months in Cuba.
Obviously, in the right scenario, with a doctorate or a little less, a lot of doors open and you can have good teeth, buy yourself a house with a pool or a cosy cottage and travel, but that’s not what happens in a lot of people’s lives who deserve a good life too. We might like to say in positive speeches that anything is possible if you put your mind to it but we know that it is not true. Surrounding yourself well takes allies and supportive people instead of envious ones. Yes, there are many exclusive groups praising the principles of inclusion without really working on implementing them.
Being well surrounded is not just something you take, it’s given. And it is not always a matter of deserved or not. If you can make it through the obstacles, you become an adult despite everything harsh that happened, despite bad luck and violence, despite loneliness and hardship. The privileged are no better than those whose lives have been less than perfect. I do not agree with those who boast of having a loving protective entourage, I am empathetic to those who thoughtfully celebrate it because they are aware of their privileges.
Life is a bit of anything and everything.
Santé Mentalité inc. 