Now that many cities in most of the country are re-opening with social distancing measures in mind I realized something very important about returning. There was nothing much to go back to. All my social life was extremely and very socially distant to begin with. Practically all social gatherings were based on consuming, they either had to do with buying food, buying alcohol or buying something to buy time. So it strikes me ironic when people say "it will not be the same" with social distancing. Although I always felt the same amount of distance from people as I do with social distancing measures put in place. All the times spent going to restaurants, shopping malls, retail stores and even bars there was always this cold distance from others in the building. The alcohol would sometimes mask it, or make one even forget about it, but the distance is there regardless. If you didn't have money, you wouldn't be able to go into the club. If you didn't have money, you would probably have to feel the embarrassment of having to "bum" off of your friends, or uncomfortably sit there saying no to the waiter when asked if you would like to order something. Just the idea that you need money to even hang out with people out in the public is coldly distant. I mean not all places, but how many people want to hang out at a library or a park? The parks in the past years leading up to the pandemic have been so damn empty. Often times there would only be people looking at their cellphones at the parks, creating this whole new bubble that you "should" not penetrate because all their socializing is in their phones now and don't you dare interrupt that. The only time the parks were full was when there was some sporting event, in which you would have to pay to create in the first place. The public space is by and large mostly non-social now thanks to consumer technology, consumerism and money as a whole. Almost all of my interactions with people when I went out (before the coronavirus) revolved around an exchange of money. Like we have all become walking talking products "you want my time and get to know me? buy me a drink or pay for my companionship online playing video games" and yes I just found about about e-girls not too long ago. Everything and everybody is a product and because of this it has created a social distance that has made us more distant than even a deadly pandemic had the chance to do.
Alternatively the pandemic lockdown has actually made us even more socially connected than ever before. For once, young people (who normally don't vote or are for the most part apolitical) are actually standing up for human rights. Yes human rights, that thing we forgot about because corporations kept throwing us electronics and telling us the only way to be social is here on the internet or consuming at a bar or brewery or whichever way you can keep making somebody money. Heck I'm here writing in desperation to connect with people under the Google umbrella, the corporate information monopoly. Or simply because you have to go to work. Let's not forget about that, the fact that everybody was so busy "working" that they didn't have time to protest or fight the system. But now that so many are out of work, at home forced to actually think outside of consuming/working; we actually have people fighting for human rights again. We actually get time to think and build our personalities and in turn become caring human beings again. The corporations are well aware of this. They are well aware that consumer/workers are becoming humans again, so they push the government to stop the pay checks and force these human beings to assimilate again. Force these products to fall back in line, ultimately to go back to work and go back to consuming. A return to the cold social distancing that was before.
