Covid Parties and Second Hand Smoke

The natives are restless out here in Quarantine USA. I am too. I want to dance with my friends, hug them in public, browse around thrift stores looking for bargains, shoot off my wide open mouth over coffee in a cafe. I want to touch everything in the grocery store just because I can. I want to be free to go to a crowded event in a big park and buy lousy food – and I don’t even like any of that.

But I’m staying home, protecting myself and my community – and writing blog posts. Others, however, are not so cooperative. They are itching to get out of corona confinement and mounting protests to push their Governors to give them a “get out of jail free” card.

“This is insanity. It’s gone way too far. We don’t live in Nazi Germany,” a protestor said outside Lapham Peak in Delafield in defiance of Wisconsin governor Tony Evers closing 40 state parks, forests and recreational areas. In Michigan where Governor Gretchen Whitmer imposed a shelter in place order, protestors chanted “Lock her up.” They dubbed the effort “Operation gridlock”, with the slogan: “She’s driving us out of business. We’re driving to Lansing.” The Hill reports: “On Monday, about 100 protesters crowded the Ohio statehouse as Gov. Mike DeWine gave his daily coronavirus briefing, demanding an end to the state’s stay-at-home order, which the governor extended to May 1 earlier this month.”

This attitude sets public health against personal freedom, a dangerous line. Camps are facing off, sides are being taken, and, as always, the US President is right there egging the “freedom lovers” on. 

Covid Confinement raises thorny issues of personal freedom and social good.

  • What’s the morality of Covid?
  • Can a Covid etiquette be embraced enough to keep us safe, or do we need rules, or laws or enforcement?
  • What rules do we need and how much can we trust our neighbors to “do the right thing?”
  • Is social distancing like second hand smoke: absent consideration, laws are needed. Is it like traffic violations – speeding, running lights – where personal freedom and public safety intersect. Are stay home orders like condoms; if you want to stay safe, you enforce use before people get too close? It’s not their responsibility to keep you safe, it’s yours.

In the United States we’ve erred on the side of liberty. If it’s not prohibited, I can have/ do/ or be whatever I want. Not only do many or most Americans like to make our own rules and trust ourselves more than some bureaucrats, but we believe this entitlement is essential for innovations, inventions, prosperity, and winning. My generation grew up on the Lone Ranger, a self-appointed, rogue defender of justice. We grew up on cowboy lyrics like “Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, Don’t fence me in.”

Air-brushed out of this version of freedom, though, are the rights of the meek to ample space to unfurl their own destiny. “Westward Ho!” sliced right through the traditional freedoms of the original peoples who hunted across those wide open plains. Through the buffalo’s right to exist. The land seemed empty. When we “settled” it, we called it progress but we violated the rights of everyone and everything in our way. Not an unusual move for our species ever since we stood up on 2 legs, discovered fire and started making tools. We’ve just gotten better than other species in claiming space as our own. Until Covid started to occupy us.

Covid sets before us a new challenge to our right to have what isn’t under someone else’s lock and key and to go wherever we want that isn’t posted as “no trespassing” and to do what gives us pleasure and advantage.  Before Covid, public health was not on many people’s radar. Protection wasn’t face masks and hand washing – it was law enforcement, weapons, the military and the wall. We thought keeping others out and away was enough to keep our way of life. Then this thing 125 nanometers wide made it through all our protections, including into mansions and halls of power.

What is freedom in this new Covid era?

A freedom primer

Even though US citizens live in a “free country,” most only have the “rights” side of freedom at all right, while the responsibilities side is more like hygiene. You do it in order to get on with the good stuff. 

In the protests above, people are supposedly rebelling against imposed limits. They seem to be standing up for their freedoms, for the flag, America and wide open spaces, but at what cost to others? And themselves?

I’ve had a nose for escape most of my life. One small example was my escape plan for exiting college after a lonely, pointless Sophomore year. I concocted a program for study abroad, got professors to sign off on it before they knew what was happening, and got out without dropping out. I felt trapped in one of those admirable lives that make no sense, and escaped while appearing to play by the rules. Ha!

The experience of freedom can indeed be intoxicating. The first moments of release from prison. The warmth of summer when you can go outdoors without shivering. The ecstasy of orgasm. The day you graduate. Notice, though, that the experience of freedom comes after being up against a challenge. It is earned freedom. You have made it through the winter. You have completed your prison sentence. Passed your exams. If you don’t accept the constraints part of a bigger goal,  you don’t get a PhD, learn your lessons, experience the French “petit mort”, exult in the exuberance of spring. To love the release without loving the challenge is to miss the point. 

There is no such thing as “freedom” without “limits” – just like there is no up without down, in without out, yes without no, now without then, good without bad. Take away “up” and there’s no need for a word “down”. Take away limits in service to freedom and the world would disperse instantly like a lighter than air gas with no bottle. Take away freedom and the world would collapse into a black hole.

Limits (or constraints or rules or boundaries) are essential to even have any sense of freedom. Constraints are the design tools of everything in creation. When God separated heaven and earth, he did it by drawing a line. By saying yes to some things and no to others life achieves the  ecology of a forest or the sturdiness of a house or the generations of an indigenous tribe in the Amazon jungle. Life likes the golden mean and the golden rule and the Goldilocks “not too much, not too little, just right.” Life balances elements so that everything thrives.

Here’s where we get to stand freedom on its head. To love freedom you have to love limits, because they are your design tools. You can call limits choices. What do you choose to have and not have, do and not do, eat and not eat, join or avoid, to make your good life. Everyone has their own lines. Some lines are givens – like gravity and breath. The smarter you are at setting some and accepting others, the better your outcomes. Your yesses and nos determine how you work, love, earn, save, give and on and on. Mastery of limits isn’t getting rid of them. That would evaporate your life. It is to design with them. To set limits that support your goals.

I had a housemate, a writer, who crackled with creativity. She was also one of the most disciplined writers I’ve known. She had daily goals, tasks assigned to days of the week, a business she grew in the midst of the pandemic. Her determination to have precisely the life she wants keeps her on task. She disciplines her time to liberate her genius. 

Breaking the rules doesn’t make you free. It just makes you responsible for making new ones – and getting others to agree to them. 

Tearing down the system earns you the right, duty, pleasure and headache of designing a new one that everyone will ratify. Sometimes it’s worth it, but the cost is great. To rebel is to earn the right to set new limits. When the old rules are broken, it’s time for new ones, new agreements between equals about how to structure our society for the good of all. I was in Chile during the uprising in the Fall of 2019. After all the destruction and water cannons and tear gas, the achievement was establishing a process to write a new Constitution.

Which brings us back to the Covid Confinement Protests. How are we going to be liberated from Covid? If not confinement, what? What do the protestors suggest? That we mix and mingle and sacrifice people for the sake of freedom? That we hasten herd immunity even if it risks more fatalities? That we battle for our rights even if it cancels someone’s right to life?

Freedom, then, actually belongs to those mature enough to design a game that works for all players. The less mature you are, the more rules you’ll have no control over. The more you want to be a rule-breaker, the greater your responsibility for being a rule changer. It’s like flypaper, you unstick one finger and 3 others get trapped.

Freedom is a skill.

The freedom skill-set

If freedom comes to those who can design with limits that work for all, how do we become good designers?

One step is to understand the function of walls. Cells have walls. Houses have walls. For many years Berlin had a wall, as did China, as did fortresses and as do seaside communities keeping back the tide. The United States, of course, is currently trying to stem the tide of immigrants by building a wall. Covid is showing us how much we need immigrants to harvest our food and take care of our moms as home health workers. 

Which walls work well? Which fail? It depends on whether the wall is the best strategy for achieving your goals. Sometimes a door works better. Or a fence with a gate. Or no fence at all.

Let’s look at the smallest wall, a cell wall. It is a sturdy membrane that holds every level of life together. Cells are factories, converting inputs into energy. Cells differentiate into bones and blood, skin and organs, nerves and muscles. Every cell wall has to do its job well enough for the whole organism to thrive.

Cell walls actually have proteins that serve as gatekeepers. They ask, in their own way, “Is what’s outside food or poison?” If food, the proteins turn to let it in. If poison, the proteins line up a different way to keep it out.  So walls both protect us from what we don’t want and connect us to what we do want. Our bodies also have ways to discern what is food and what is poison. We have 7 orifices that let the outside in so we can function as well as possible. We need to eat. Our nose asks, “Food or poison?” Our tongues guard our throats, “Food or poison?” Our ears listen, “Friend of foe.”

Talking to Walls

In other words, we need to talk to the walls we encounter so we can see if they are protecting us from harm or connecting us to nourishment of any sort (food, love, safe shelter). We need to select what comes in and reject what needs to stay out so that we can thrive. If we select or reject the wrong things, we can perish. Or miss opportunities.

Imagine you hit a wall and stick to your guns. “Nobody and nothing gonna stop me.” You might break down the wall or break through it or generally break something so you can keep on going. While it might feel good to flex your muscles and get your way, you might have broken something you need. Maybe you broke the bank – bought what you wanted and maxed out a card. Maybe you broke someone’s nose, punching your way back to freedom, but maybe that person is the wife you are quarantined with or a neighbor whose dog barks at night. Maybe you broke the law. Or broke doctor’s orders and left the hospital AMA. If freedom for you means breaking through, or in, or out, or up, you might destroy your perfectly good marriage or opportunity for advancement.

When you hit a wall, don’t hit it again. Stop. Look. Listen. Here you are. Frustrated and angry. You want out (of the job, marriage, college dorm room), but something is stopping you. You can ask:

What is this wall for? What is its function? 

Does the wall say, “Wait until the time is right?” Does it say, “Go back, this way lies death.” Does it say, “Enter at your own risk?” Does it say, “What wall?” Is it a sparring partner, making you stronger? Or a temptress, making you weaker? 

Before you act, ask, “Is this wall my fear? Have I been here before? If I chose to back off before, did I miss a big opportunity out of fear? Or did I dodge a bullet? Was the fear merited or was I spooked by my own shadow? If I am shirking my destiny, where do I apply courage to walk forward, whatever the cost? By pausing to ask, you can tell whether you are acting out of bravado or bravery. One is cowardice. One is courage.

Talking to walls isn’t easy. It’s not easy to pause and wonder why something just got in your way. It takes looking at a bigger picture. It takes self-honesty. It takes more maturity than most of us have. Because of that, these encounters with walls are like vision quests: they make us grow.

Mirror mirror on the wall, showing me who I am when I am at my limit of patience, knowledge, strength, wisdom, tolerance, sloth.

Freedom in the era of Covid

Does this help understand the face-off between the Covid Cowboys and the Covid Cautious?

Looking at the wall from the Governors’ point of view, you see protection for their populations. Looking from the protestors you see protection from a State intent on limiting civil liberties.

Is it an issue of selection? Could there be a more nuanced policy that allows a few more businesses to stay open with a few regulations about masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and keeping a close eye on data? On the other hand, could there be a more nuanced understanding that just because you can’t go party in crowded clubs, you are free to do whatever you want in your 4 walls with your quarantine mates? You aren’t without all freedoms. Just those that can harm others. And if you want to have Covid parties and Covid cook-outs with bigger groups and risk your life, well you can’t come into public spaces. You are free to take your own lives in your own backyards and churches, but not ours. For example, the Governor of Florida is opening up the beaches, even though Spring Break turned out to be a super spreader event. How do people get to risk their lives enjoying the beach in a virus constrained world? Is social distancing the price of beach parties? Are beach parties even parties if everyone is 6 feet apart?

Maybe those who favor strict stay home orders are delaying herd immunity. Maybe those who want to keep gathering in groups will be super spreaders who infect many others, some of whom die. My freedom stops where your aerosols begin. Your freedom stops where my responsibility to the well being of all my citizens begins. You can’t cry fire in a crowded theater. You can’t sicken people with second hand smoke. And you can’t go into public with Covid, and for that you need a passport stamped with “14 days self-quarantine”.

This thing called freedom isn’t easy. 

Where to draw the line isn’t obvious. What to limit and what to let loose for the maximum safe freedom is tricky. America aspires to be the land of the free. We aren’t there yet. It’s the land of the entitled, the land of getting the most for the least. Covid is giving us a golden opportunity to grow a bit more beyond “my way or the highway” – whichever side of whatever wall you are on. Hopefully this crisis will be like a teething ring, giving teeth to our ideal of liberty and justice for all.

 

17 Comments

  1. Great post Vicki! Freedom always comes at a cost, sometimes to ourselves, often to others, whether those others are human or not. A question I have been sitting with a lot lately is: how much of that cost am I willing to acknowledge and own, and how much to I rationalize away or hide from? How valuable is my exercise of freedom to the society in which I live, and how do I balance that value against its costs? This has been a very fertile area of pondering for me as of late.

  2. This is about “Chesterton’s Fence” and how American culture for historical reasons have grown-up without much in terms of fences because the country has yet to reach its limits unlike Europe or Asia. Yet with increasing number of people claiming ever bigger spaces for themselves (literally and metaphorically) fences are getting erected. Older cultures, which are denser and have more natural resource limits imposed on them, are used to dealing with fences. Both in terms of accepting them and taking Chesterton’s approach to dismantling them. Since this was learned so long ago, I don’t know whether it was learned the hard way or whether it was reasoned out.

  3. Thank you, Vicki. This is what resonated for me: “Freedom, then, actually belongs to those mature enough to design a game that works for all players. The less mature you are, the more rules you’ll have no control over. The more you want to be a rule-breaker, the greater your responsibility for being a rule changer. It’s like flypaper, you unstick one finger and 3 others get trapped.

    Freedom is a skill.”

    I’ve been meditating on how so many of these new Freedom Shouters invariably invoke the Constitution and the Second Amendment for themselves, but are unwilling to consider the Constitution as a whole and living document meant to guide Americans in a reasoned and just process of decision-making. It seems so many have lost the skill of freedom–the understanding that along with rights come responsibilities, to self and others.

    Elisabeth Roberts
  4. Wow. Can’t wait to read more. I grew up in the middle of wild places during and after WWII, free and safe to roam around the fields and lanes all day on foot bike or pony. And one of my favourite songs. Don’t fence me in! Still is.

    May I share?

    Tamara
    1. of course share. I think maturation is coming to accept that there are limits, invisible to us as children (personal and species) and discovering the pleasure of crafting with limits, being the designer not just the liberated one moment, trapped the next person… that is a new pleasure, weightier but wiser and liberating as well.

      Vicki
  5. This is thought-provoking and helpful, Vicki. My mind first goes to ….. I can definitely see both/all sides of the issue. I find myself wondering daily how long this thing is really going to last, and how necessary it is to do it the way we’re doing it. And of course there is the argument that since we had no way to prepare for it, we’re learning as we go, and I have accepted that. I have also seen quite a few doctors speaking out to say that this has been handled all wrong, that flattening the curve actually did us a disservice in the long run, and some good arguments why it should have been able to run its course more true to its form. I won’t go into all that here but there are numerous links to those talks. I also think about how likely it is that we may start having more of these kinds of health issues ahead….. do we just drop everything and stay home for months on end every time there is a pandemic, as we are so afraid someone will die? A certain percentage of people will die, especially those who are already ill and their immune systems not strong. That was true before this virus came along, and will still be true afterward. Every year a certain percentage of folks die from the flu, yet we don’t go into lockdown for that. How much of this event has been truth and how much media and hysteria? We haven’t even gotten hard into the debate of vaccines-for-all yet. That’s going to be a sticky wicket. All this being said, I believe most medical folks and scientists have our best interests at heart and are doing their very best to get us all through this. I also think in certain instances there are profits to be made from this pandemic and there are some out there doing all they can to make as much of that profit theirs as they can. My hope is that we truly do learn enough from this experience that in the future we won’t need to go on lockdown for weeks or months on end. We will hopefully learn more about who truly IS at risk and who is not, as well as who already has had exposure to the virus, even before it becomes public knowledge. I’m not taking sides here, just sharing the kinds of questions and concerns that run through my mind as time plods by. There are no easy answers in such a time of confusion, and in a country known for exploiting others for personal gain. Thanks for always asking the questions, Vicki, and giving us the space to give our input.

    Sue
  6. After living abroad for 25 years I have come to the conclusion that Americans don’t really know what freedom is because it’s been fed to them by corporate, capitalistic goals and not their own. (The freedom to shop at Walmart???) If you look at Denmark, for example, their underlying philosophy – financed by their high income tax rate – is that – if you give citizens “free” healthcare and education – you will lower their anxiety levels because they will know that their basic needs are taken care of by their government.
    Americans are the most ripped off nation I know, having been manipulated by corporate-defined wants and needs and weaned on fear and the very WORST are the medical and university systems.
    Here on the continent healthcare and education are considered human rights and not luxuries.
    Remember, a fish rots from the head first!

    Giulietta Degli Spiriti
    1. Brilliant. it is so hard for Americans to see this. i’m not even sure the virus will change the calculus of politics so we will head off a cliff. I can wish, hope and work for a green new deal or a social sanity model but even now the signature of the bailout is biz as usual with public begging for crumbs. thanks to saying it like it is

      Vicki
  7. When I first did “Your Money or Your Life” in the early 90’s, I viewed you as a sort of maverick. You are a rare example of someone who puts the work into whatever you do, and experiences the freedom that results from that work. I see you living life on your own terms and doing so with integrity. You seem to have the courage to stand up for what is right in your heart, while still listening actively to others with respect. You take action where you deem action to be needed. You ask hard questions. You expect yourself to answer hard questions. You not only posit solutions, you live solutions. You dive deep and learn from your mistakes. Yes: mature, wise and liberating. When I was a therapist, nothing triggered the rebellious inner toddler/teenager in adult clients more than limit and boundary setting. Same in parenting. Our country could really benefit from leadership that provided a firm, clear, benevolent, line. It is okay to not like the limits. It is okay to question the boundaries. When they are being drawn in an effort to keep us safe, maybe we can agree to not like them, but honor them anyway? Like speed limits, seatbelt laws, second hand smoke. Sadly, it appears that we do need to mature. Thank you for your clear expression.

    Melinda
    1. I’m moved by your perception of me. maybe together we can get toddler nation to grow up. I simply see the knack of setting your own limits in service to your purpose, including honoring the ones you can’t change, as ultimate liberation.

      Vicki
  8. Wow, I really enjoyed your thoughtful article. Your writing is sooo good. I have already begun thinking about my walls. Can I move them? It is so exciting to have a mind switch. Your article is the best thing I have read during this virus. Thank you for taking time to write it and sharing it.

    Sharon
  9. This is my favorite line: “Tearing down the system earns you the right, duty, pleasure and headache of designing a new one that everyone will ratify. Sometimes it’s worth it, but the cost is great. To rebel is to earn the right to set new limits. When the old rules are broken, it’s time for new ones, new agreements between equals about how to structure our society for the good of all. ”

    Though I totally loved the depth and wisdom of the whole piece.

    For me the best limits come from within, from three sources.

    One is our purpose, which is precisely the algorithm to determine what to say yes or no to. It takes immense discipline to recognize that something that could possibly be fun isn’t aligned with our purpose and therefore choose not to do it. It also takes discipline, or a different kind, to free ourselves from shame, shoulds, and obligations so that we can rededicate choice to purpose.

    The second is our values, which set a kind of line about how far we will go in any one direction without being untrue to ourselves. The kind of care and responsibility that you speak of fall squarely, for me, within this. Being able to think through impacts and make choices that integrate them also fits here. I sometimes wonder about whether the curse of the US culture (where I am not from and where I lived for 36 years until a year ago) is the reduction of all values to this hyper-vigilance about freedom which, like you, I see as very much anxiety driven.

    The third is our capacity. Our capacity to align with our purpose and values. Our capacity to care for impacts. Our capacity to recognize that we can’t do everything, that we can’t respond well in all situations, that we are human and mortal. Our capacity for humility, in other words, is part of what creates useful limits within which we can free, which, for me, is precisely about the capacity to choose and respond rather than react.

    Thanks again for this piece which I enjoyed thinking “with you” about as I was reading it.

    1. These are amazing distinctions, Miki. Hard won wisdom: values, purpose and capacity. where we’re headed, how we will get there and if we actually can fulfill on our word. much to ponder.

      Vicki
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  11. Thanks Vicki, bought YMOYL and the tape workbook course in 1993. Kept it all hoping to to make the changes that would bring me peace. I have given away my book collection of 5000 books and of the 100 I couldn’t part with, the cassette course is among them. I have the cassettes and workbook on my desk now, holding on to the possibility I might still be in integrity with my commitment to be responsible for my own happiness. This is a wall I’ve stood next to for a very long time. It has lichen.
    The words “Second Hand Smoke (SHS)” were what caught my eye and why I read the blog post. My life has become, in the last 20 years about avoiding SHS as one whiff gives me a sore throat for a week. I buy Ricola lozenges in bulk. No kidding. Every where I have worked and everywhere I have lived these last 20 years (since somehow I became sensitized/allergic/whatever it is. I quit smoking Luckys in 1997). You can imagine, I advocate for the enforcement of existing non smoking rules and now I’m the enemy, a pariah. And the stench of burning cigarettes keeps wafting by. The battle to breath non cigarette polluted air has been the deciding factor in leaving jobs, housing, and relationships. New job in the last month and new housing and I’m battling SHS at both. I’m looking for new housing and may have to leave the job. This is obviously a major wall in my life. I’m listening very carefully on how to be with this wall as access to my own liberation.

    Brent Scott

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