Semi-Thoughtful Musings

August 10, 2020: Day 154 awaiting the disappearance of something that apparently doesn’t want to disappear (but, of course, eventually will).

Things That Eventually Disappeared: To his credit, our exceptionally talented leader (aka Orange Baby) will, in fact, be proven right in his claim that the Corona virus will eventually disappear. As he claimed in his interview with Chris Wallace, he’ll, “be right eventually.” And, hey, for all you doubters out there, its time to prove OB’s point by reviewing the many other historical examples of significant events, medical and otherwise, that eventually “disappeared.”

1) The Spanish flu of 1918-1919. Granted, about 500 million people were infected and about 50 million people died, but it did go way. Yep, it disappeared. And it only took a couple of years.

2) Polio. Used to be that 15,000 infections happened every year. Now? None, Zip. Nada. Disappeared (although anti-vaxers might be able to change that equation). Would have been gone even if Jonas Salk didn’t intervene.

3) Bubonic Plague (aka Black Death). Sure, it killed about 200 million people and might have reduced human population by about 40 or 50 percent, but that doesn’t change the fact that it actually did just, sort of miraculously, “go way.” No major running around declaring some national emergency was necessary. Hey, they didn’t even have science get in the way and muck things up. We just needed to give it a little time.

4) The Depression. Yes, it lasted a few years and was pretty dismal for some people. But the fact is, it’s gone. Eradicated. No longer a problem (although, apparently, there are some negative nabobs out there telling us another one is just around the corner).

5) Slavery. Okay, so it took a little longer than a couple of years to go away (like 250 years) but that doesn’t change the fact that eventually it went away. Okay, supposedly there was some kind of war involved, but some (very fine) people say that the Civil War was only about state’s rights. Anyway, you can’t deny the fact that it’s gone now. Right?

6) World War I. It was only around for about four years, so that’s not really a long time, in the scheme of things. 22 million dead, but it could have been a lot worse. And, like all those others, it did end. Except for the unfortunate consequence that it happened to lead to…

7) World War II. Which lasted a little longer, depending on when you want to say that it started. And yes, it did include some rather unfortunate things like attempts at mass Jewish extinction, destruction on a biblical scale and the introduction of weapons that could essentially obliterate the entire world, but the indisputable fact remains that it disappeared. Poof. Gone. No one sits around worrying about World War II coming back and haunting us, do they? Because, just like everything else, it went away.

So what is the lesson here? Simple: Things go away. More specifically, all things will eventually go away if you just give it a little time (Roman Empire? Gone). And while, sure, some of the events identified above may have required a little push here and there to eventually reach it’s denouement (like, mobilizing the entire world to fight tyranny), the fact remains, they disappeared. And anyone who had predicted, prior to whatever ending happened, that it would eventually end, would have been proven right. Thus, I can comfortably predict that OB’s prediction, that it will eventually disappear, will come true.

So, how can we apply the great OB’s predictive skills to enhance our own little lives? Well, to start, let’s remember that patience, as they say, is a virtue. If you are experiencing some problems in your life (and you have just a little patience), the problems will eventually go away. For example: 1) Insurmountable Debt (like that which may soon happen to millions of your fellow Americans). Yes, things might happen, like bankruptcy, eviction and, maybe, suicide. But, given time, it will go away (although things may be a tad different than they used to be). 2) Open, Bleeding, Oozing Wounds. Sure, you can treat it if that’s important to you, but if you have patience, it might just go away on it’s own. And even if it doesn’t, even if it becomes gangrenous and lethal, well, doesn’t that lead to an ending of sorts? Of course it does! So even though it may not be the disappearance you were hoping for, it becomes a disappearance nonetheless. 3) A Positive Test For Covid-19. Aha, bet you didn’t expect we’d come full circle on this, did you? Listen, most people who get this are fine, so you might not even need patience for it to go away. And if you’re having trouble breathing, feel like you were run over by a train, or whatever, you can feel comfortable in the fact that the medical people who catalog these things have a really important statistic that they call “Closed Cases.” That’s the sum of all the people who either survived (whether symptom- free or permanently crippled) and those that, well, ummm…. didn’t make it. They, um, died. Dead or Alive = Closed Case. One way or the other, it just disappears.

Case closed.

Now, back to our regular programming. Be smart. Wear a f-ing mask, people!