Site icon John Loraine

Hello, World!

Hello, world! What the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, it seems like just yesterday everything was okay and then, all of a sudden, everything and everybody went fucking crazy. People lived their lives, going to work, raising and feeding their families, enjoying its moments, and taking it all for granted. And now, it seems like we all are fucking hating each other, want to crush each other, want to ruin whatever we have built this far. This is not how a community survives. This is not how the country survives. This situation is more like the end of us all; the end of all the human things that we’ve accomplished over the centuries and decades. Every fucking thing is going to hell now.

It is hard to imagine that we can now build cars that drive themselves, we can shoot the fucking rockets into space, we can engineer pretty much everything, but that God damned virus is something we don’t know how to deal with. And after six months into this pandemic, we are not able to figure it out at all. It seems like bullshit; for some, it has taken people’s lives; for some, it is a political thing, and it also is a fucking propaganda. But at the end of it all, it is just us, the regular people, who’ll get fucked the most. We need to think about us first. But we don’t. We are just trying to find who’s a fault it has been and who we should be angry with. And that, my dear friends, is bullshit.

Long gone the days when we could just go out and about. Long gone days when we were just doing our shit, going about our business, not thinking, not worrying about anything pretty much. Today, all we think is the virus, who’s to blame, who to vote for, who’s worth anything, who should we fuck over, who should we cancel, and so on. We cannot talk to each other, we cannot see each other, we cannot get together anymore, we cannot be in the same fucking room anymore, we cannot go to churches, we can’t go to work, we cannot go out without a mask, we cannot ignore our governor’s warnings and curfews and shit. What in the fuck is going on? When did this all start? Why are we such a lousy, fucking scumbags, so easy to manipulate, so easy to scare away and so dumb at the same time?

I hear things, such as we will never get back to normal. This is a rough fucking statement. This is a significant scar on the world’s face or an asshole. Some people say that things will never be the same, and the saddest part of it is that they might be correct. I’ve been to the mall recently, and I saw the proof of that. I saw ruins of what has been a pretty busy place, with many people hanging out, buying shit, eating, talking, laughing, doing nothing. It all looks different now. While you can still go to the mall, and most of the stores are still around, and you need your mask to walk around, it feels dead inside. Everything feels like dying, slowly. You can see that for yourself, you can feel that something’s not right. There aren’t too many people anymore anywhere. The stores are almost empty, and even if there are a few buyers, it takes the cashier a long fucking time to check anybody out. I do feel for those poor people who stuck with those jobs in these times, but also it is good they still have a job, but that I worry about them and their jobs not lasting for too long anymore.

I walked into Barnes & Noble to check out some books, to browse through the vinyl racks, and to get some coffee at the shop. I was surprised to see the store almost empty. I mean, there were maybe ten people at most, staff included. Wow, and this was on a Sunday. I remember, especially on the weekend, there were so many people at that store that one can barely walkthrough. The cafe was packed; everyone was sitting there drinking their coffee, reading something, talking, listening to music, etc. Now one other girl was getting her drink, standing in the line before me, one barista, and nobody else. While I don’t mind having any lines, it felt weird and strange to be there. I thought to myself, should I even be here? Is this the right move? But why wouldn’t it be? I did this before. I used to come to the mall all my life. Everything about this visit to the mall felt strange. I wanted to be there, I wanted to go out and get my ‘normal’ shopping experience, but nothing was normal about that experience. It felt like something was missing. It felt like everything was weird, and all these malls and shops, Barnes & Noble included, will fold soon. This might be the end of them all, sadly.

My recent visit to the gym, on the other hand, felt quite ‘normal’ and a great experience. It has been over six months since I’ve been to my gym, and now that I am back for the first time since like February, nothing’s changed. It was all pretty much the same. Two things that were different: no sauna and everyone has to wear a fucking mask. That’s it – plenty of people working out, all looking good and in shape. Nice looking girls with those tight yoga pants were exercising and showing off their goods. Damn, I’ve missed that place! Back in the ‘normal’ days, I would go to the gym every morning Monday through Friday, 5:30 am right before going to work. That was my schedule for the last five years. When pandemic hit, it all stopped until recently. Now I knew how much that fucking early part of my day really made sense out of my every day and how effective it has been on my life and overall well-being. This routine was something from the early morning of each day that kept me accountable, responsible, and kept me fulfilled as a human being. That daily routine that I had was something that made me feel accomplished. Six months without that schedule and my mind was going fucking haywire. The cause of my recent depression and constant anxiety was because I no longer had my daily routine in place. I did not know what to do with my time, and there were not too many options, after all. The two fucking dumbells that I’ve managed to borrow from a friend helped only a little. But then my weird work schedule came in, and all I did was fucking working, no time or energy left for anything else.

In my last post from 2019 and the first one in January 2020, I wrote about life, time and priorities, and how to be more organized and stay productive and manage your time better. I also wrote about managing my demons, staying productive with my health and writing, and other shit. Many things changed in both the world, as we knew it, and in my personal life. Yours, too, by the way. Seeing how social distancing and quarantine and losing jobs and rents and homes around the country affected each and every one of us, even indirectly, has definitely changed the perspective of how wrong we were about so many things. I would never think in my life that this kind of shit was ever possible in the modern world. This seems like instead some apocalypse science fiction movie.

Since civilization began, with all the progress that happened, we still haven’t learned much after all. I mean that a lot of things that we took for granted and never paid too much attention too became essentials. Think about your local grocery store, or doctor’s office, or think about seeing your loved once, family members, and good friends of yours, now that you were told you can’t see or talk or be close enough with them because of the danger of the virus spreading out. Think about the community and just everyday human needs and values that now have been compromised. You look at every stranger and your friends including as a fucking virus carriers. And this is not normal. My priorities about how to stay productive and manage my shit better went to shit, obviously, and I need to resent myself to keep us in the new world. A lot of work has to be done to fix the mental damage. I have never had such a deep depression in my life as I did in the last six months. It was one fucking weird rollercoaster. This shit will leave the scars on so many in the future. We will never be the same people again.

All that being said, this doesn’t mean that everything and everybody is doomed. That means that this is the time for reflection, reevaluation, the time to change and become a better person. We all can. I know. It will take us through some more shit with upcoming elections and stuff, but we will manage to get through this, as long as we stay together as civilized people who care about each other. Dear world, I have trust in you, don’t you fucking go insane anymore.

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