by William Skink
Wherever stress-lines exist in your relationships, whether it’s with people or institutions, I suspect Covid has greatly amplified those stress-lines to the point of breaking.
In some of my own conversations, and the ones I’m listening to via podcasts (like Sam Tripoli’s Tin Foil Hat) the sad realization that, at some point, we might have to leave behind (metaphorically or literally) friends and family who just can’t make the cognitive leap necessary to prepare for what’s coming is starting to set in.
I’ve been marinating on the epiphany these last few weeks that information is meaningless without relationships.
What do I mean by that?
Take my writing on the issue of homelessness in Missoula, for example. Seven years working at an emergency shelter means I speak from the knowledge of the relationships I used to have in the non-profit world during that time, as evidenced by the pic below of my handsome mug and the smiling face of United Way’s ED, Susan Hay Patrick.
I am using the past tense in referring to these relationships because I am no longer the insider given kudos for my work in the downtown core. Instead I am more akin to a whistleblower who decided to apply some accelerant to the brushfires I set to certain bridges I no longer care to maintain.
My personal relationships are a different story because bridge burning is not what I am trying to do, but when it comes to my own father, I’m no longer making any effort to hide my resentment at his lifetime inability to form emotional relationships with his family.
So nothing he says to me will have any impact, and nothing I say to him will mean anything because I’m too angry and disrespectful in my delivery of the information.
Since I’ve been told that I am a terrible listener by multiple members of my family when it comes to how I am communicating my concern over things like the totally not mandatory vaccine, I did my best on Sunday to hear my dad out on his thoughts about why the caring people in Big Pharma are needing to rush their efforts.
It didn’t go well.
For my parents and RD readers and anyone else who gives a shit about being as prepared as possible for what’s coming, I highly recommend episode #403 of Tin Foil Hat about the controlled demolition of the American Empire with Charlie Robinson.
The alarm bells are getting louder every day, but the fear fog is still preventing many from hearing them. That will only be getting worse as we are pumped full of fear in order to get us to accept their solution.