I have two breeding bucks on my farm named Hugo and Bart. They are hilarious and gross beings. Intact male goats are full of themselves in general, and as the alpha, Hugo is extra feisty. He struts around, stinking like you wouldn't imagine (bucks pee on their faces and beards to create a musk that attracts the female goats), challenging anybody or anything that stands in his way, and spitting and muttering at the females on the other side of the divider fence, wooing them to the best of his ability.
His personality (and likely his scent) drew the attention of my chocolate lab. Hondo is eighty pounds of pure muscle, and he has energy higher and more unstoppable than any other animal I have ever owned or met. He is very sweet and has never had a negative thought about a human. But as an intact male, something about Hugo really rubs him the wrong way. I think it's the way Hugo struts around with his alpha energy, and the fact that instead of running when Hondo approaches him, he squares up to him and starts taunting him and peeing on himself. Hondo loses his mind when this happens. He starts running up and down the fence line barking this desperate, high-pitched bark, pawing at the dirt like a bull, and trying to fling himself through the top gap in the gate to get to the bucks. Hugo, completely unimpressed, continues to show off. This happens all the time, but this morning it got more intense. I wanted to take Hondo with me on a walk of the property border, which requires me to go into the buck pasture. The bucks were waiting for us at the gate when we arrived. Hondo was on his slip lead, a very useful tool for a dog with his personality, and he was excited to go on a walk. But he fixated on the bucks, of course, as soon as he spotted them, and they were ready for him. Tightening my hold on the leash, I opened the gate and we both slipped through.
Right away, he flung himself at the bucks, who in turn reared up and challenged him. I pulled him back and shortened how much leash he had, wrapping the excess around my hand. He threw himself at them again, but I turned him towards the trail and started walking away, hoping to redirect his attention to the walk. I was delusional - the bucks followed us, prancing and rearing and ready for trouble. Hondo was beside himself. He pulled on the leash so hard that he started gagging. We couldn't go two feet before he turned around to tackle the bucks. After a couple minutes of him choking himself, the bucks following us and provoking him, and the bones in my hand nearly being crushed from how hard he was pulling the leash, I gave up and took him back through the gate, where he still insisted on trying to jump through and chase his smelly foes.
The reason I'm telling this story is that the constant combativeness and instant rage which these animals have towards each other reminds me a lot of the way we're interacting as a society right now. I am ceaselessly amazed and concerned by how quickly we are at each other's throats. The COVID-19 crisis, in particular, has brought out the worst in people, in my opinion. From arguments about whether the virus is even that serious, to the increasingly divisive vaccine debates, it seems that everything about this global pandemic is a prompt for hatred. I have watched in horror as the vaccine has been loaded with so many layers of baggage and implications, regarding everything from politics to religion to social status, that where a person comes down on the issue is now seen as a commentary on his whole character and ethics. It doesn't matter what your opinion or decision about the vaccine is. Some group of people is going to find your stance outrageous and offensive, and they will attempt figuratively crucifying you in the public eye. From every side, the worst names and insults are being thrown around. People who wear the masks and get the vaccine are wimps and sheep. People who turn down the vaccine are paranoid and selfish. Sardonic memes are passed around the web tearing the opposition down, starting fights and breeding negativity and hurting feelings. People who are normally friends become frustrated with each other because every time they open their news feed, one of them has posted yet another rant or shared inaccurate statistics or demanded that their opponents "do their research" or "educate themselves." People are getting kicked out of stores for not following protocols. Someone films them and posts it on social media so everyone can share in the outrage and watch Karen scream at the security guard for escorting her to the door. The conflict is endless and exhausting. Those of us who want to avoid a fight are scared to even utter our opinion or our vaccination status out loud.
When my late Granddaddy was in the hospital with COVID fighting to live, I found myself in moments of stress and fear wanting to jump on my computer and say something nasty about people who disagreed with my stance about the virus (which I will not share in this post, because that would defeat my point). It was as if screaming at someone would help me cope. I was so angry that after all this time he and Grandmother had caught it, despite how hard we tried to protect them, that I needed to find someone to blame and tell them what I thought of them. I also wished I could track down whoever spread it to them and punch the culprit. But the latter desire was impossible and illegal, and the former was a terrible idea, and I knew it. So I resisted.
See, here's the problem. Most things you post on the Internet or shout on the street corner are completely useless. Understand that I do not mean your opinion doesn't matter or that expressing it is wrong. I'm saying that forcing it upon a bunch of people with whom you interact online or ranting to a group of acquaintances at dinner usually has the following results: the people who already agree with you will agree again, the people who disagree will start a fight with you that will go nowhere because both of you have made up your minds already, and those who don't really have an opinion on the subject will scroll on by or sit awkwardly in the corner and ask the waiter for another glass of wine. Nothing is accomplished - no minds are changed, no good is achieved, and no positive vibes are produced, especially if your rhetoric is harsh and combative or mocking and cruel.
That feeling I had about Granddaddy being sick helped me understand what was behind at least some of the fighting and discord. People are at their wits' end these days. For many of us young people, this is one of the most stressful and scary global crises we have ever experienced. We haven't undergone government-mandated food rationing due to a world war, or faced the concept of mutually assured destruction for the first time in history, or seen our loved ones drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. The Spanish Flu for us only existed in a history book, like the Black Plague. Some of us, including me, were too young to personally remember 9/11. So here we are, facing this massive, all-encompassing, life-changing pandemic, and it's terrifying. Even those who aren't that scared of the virus are still frightened by the loss of personal freedom, claustrophobic from the lockdowns, and heartbroken from not being allowed to go visit family. We're experiencing loss, and the threat of loss, in many forms. Jobs, loved ones, opportunities, lifestyles. Gone. Sometimes all at once. Sometimes right when we thought we were safe again. It's like living in a dystopian novel.
Since we're backed into a corner, we're lashing out like wild boars or injured badgers at anything that moves in our vicinity. If somebody behaves in a way we consider inconsiderate or dangerous, we take it like a punch to the gut. It's personal and it's atrocious and they're dead to us. With the modern ability to say whatever we want from the safety of our own homes to a large audience on social media, we release our frustration and our fear in a torrent of unbridled hatred. And since everyone around us is feeling the same pressure we are, in their own ways, it's like throwing a match in a puddle of gasoline. The result is violent and countless people get burned.
We need to resist this unhealthy coping mechanism. Even if we personally are not having a hard time, we need to consider how many people are. Whatever we say about COVID right now gets very personal even if we don't intend it that way, because people have experienced so much personal loss from it in the past two years. I am extra sensitive about the issue right now because the virus took my Granddaddy away from me. If someone is callous or confrontational about COVID it feels like they're slapping me in the face and telling me my loss means nothing to them. Your meme mocking those gullible idiots who disagree with you about some aspect of the virus is salt in the wound when I'm sitting here heartbroken. And millions of people feel the same way. You have probably felt the same way at some point. Why is our instinct to attack each other right now, when we need community and comfort and support more than ever?
We are in a long war with this microscopic enemy. It's so powerful and so sneaky that it's made its way across every border, broken down every defense, taken a toll we never imagined. And instead of marching shoulder-to-shoulder against that enemy, we're slitting throats in our own ranks. We should be helping each other feel loved, supported, and safe. We should be making sure we're not triggering our loved ones' worst anxieties for the sake of convenience or to prove a point. We should be calling and texting to check on one another, thanking the stressed-out waitress at the short-staffed restaurant for her hard work, giving one another reasons to smile and laugh and dance, and loving on our healthcare workers who are so incredibly brave and selfless. I talked in my post on worry about Dumbledore's saying that in the darkest times, we can still have happiness if "one remembers to turn on the light." Why aren't we trying to turn on the light more? Everything is so depressing and heavy just because of the circumstances alone, and then you poke your head out the door and there are brawls everywhere you look in the streets, and someone throws a beer bottle at your head. It's so sad. We need one another. Our bodies need us to stop adding the extra stress of anger and conflict to their already heavy load. Where are our brothers-in-arms?
I'm not saying we should be doormats, or tolerate toxicity and abuse from people around us. I'm actually just suggesting that we refrain from being toxic and abusive to others.
There's a beautiful, bone-chilling short story by H.G. Wells called "The Star" that narrates a fictional global crisis. Astronomers discover that a star is on a collision course with Earth. Soon, the whole world can see the star growing bigger on the horizon. Many people are skeptical that there is really a threat, and they're even critical of those who warn of the danger. "Common-sense was sturdy everywhere, scornful, jesting, a little inclined to persecute the obdurate fearful." (Sounds familiar.) But the star comes and passes horrifyingly close to Earth, causing intense destruction all over the planet. Wells describes the aftermath and refers to the "new brotherhood that grew presently among men," and to "the saving of laws and books and machines." The global catastrophe has a unifying effect on the survivors; they come together and work to preserve their history, their knowledge, their light. That is what I dream of seeing in the wake of this pandemic. It has caused such immense destruction, blazing over this planet like the fierce star that H.G. Wells imagined. We need to respond by drawing closer together, using our ingenuity and our humanity to fight for our existence and wellbeing as a species. I know we are capable of it, because I've seen people choose to do magnificent things even during this crisis. If you need a pick-me-up or a reminder that there are people like that in the world, I highly recommend watching John Krasinski's YouTube series called Some Good News, which he started making when the pandemic was first raging last spring. And if you know of people in your own life who are promoting brotherhood and shining a light in the darkness, please spread the news. We need to see that; instead of drowning in controversy on our social media feeds, we need to see the goodness of humanity on full display.
It's time that we all look within ourselves and ask why we're fighting, name-calling, and ridiculing. We need to learn when to speak and when to take a breather. We need to realize that each person we disagree with is a whole other human being with the accompanying stressors, hangups, tragedies, and triumphs. We've got to stop showing up ready for a fight, like my dog and my bucks. Flinging ourselves at everyone who doesn't think the way we do is nothing but harmful to them and to us. Like Hondo gagging and coughing and straining at the end of his leash, we're creating a problem that would go away if we only stepped back and stood still for a minute. In the end, if nothing else, we look as silly and disgusting in our quarreling as my bucks do when they prance around and pee on their own faces.
So my point is, don't be a pee-faced billy goat. Be human. And recognize the humanity in others.
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