getting the virus

I know all of us, the minute we feel a bit sluggish or fluffy, immediately wonder if we've caught the virus. I suppose it then depends on the kind of person you are whether you bat that thought away and insist to yourself you couldn't possibly have it or you spend more time teasing out the possibilities. I probably wonder 2 or 3 times a week whether I have it, though it's certainly not like the early days of February-March where it was like being 'it' - you were always wondering what you'd touched and whether you'd then touched your face, and so on. If I may just officially say, probably the ten billionth time on Earth this kind of sentiment has been uttered this year: imagine in October 2019 looking a year into the future and looking at what the planet has become. A year ago I was apparently in Oulu:

Though I am a teensy bit confused about that because fb also tells me that on 17 October I was also in Helsinki, and I was in Tampere for a day between those two cities. I remember the long walk I took, though, during which I encountered the mildly funny images above (if you can't tell, the pizza/burger restaurant advertised itself as 'probably the best'). I should just check my phone for the truth, because I took a mass of pictures, but my phone's over on the kitchen bench being charged.

BUT the really important thing to bear in mind is not that 'we' were complacent, or that we should enjoy everything in the moment, although of course enjoyment is fun. What I have really come to resent attitudinally is that idea that the course of history was altered by (for instance) the coronavirus. This is history, we're living it. Nothing is predestined or predictable. This is both a profound observation (because it's true) and a pathetic one. But I'm talking more about what we think of as 'normal', and how it's too bad clinging to things we don't want to change because the whole thing is always shifting; to resist it is like saying you don't want to wake up. In terms of mass consciousness of how the world works, I think this shake-up has done us a favour (that is probably the only favour that's been done). I mean sorry to come on all punk rock but it has been a revelation for many I think.