Corona Virus

Hey readers, happy Friday. Wether you work today or through the weekend it’s still Friday so enjoy it. As you all know this is my last blog until Monday morning. So I appreciate you all for sticking with me throughout the week, even with my hiccup on Wednesday.

Let me first say I hate that this damn virus was named after my favorite beer. Haha. In all seriousness if you know anyone who lost the life battle to corona virus or COVID-19 I am sorry for your lost. Regardless of my personal views an ideas of this pandemic, I’ve said before losing is hard. However I’m not exactly sold on this whole pandemic thing.

Do I believe people are getting sick and dying, yes. Do I believe it’s a big as the media makes it, no. Let’s not jump the gun and get me started on this vaccine. Simply put corona is in fact a virus. There is not much anything an other organisms can do against a virus beside try to survive through it as a species. Any organism that is alive has basically one purpose, to stay alive; as a single entity and as a collective species.

If you ask me the human species isn’t all that different then this virus. Spreading, mutating, killing all in the name of survival. Should every human contact covid-19 and die then the virus would have successfully killed every available host and either die out or mutate to be able to infect other species. If we humans kill off all of our resources on this plant we either cease to exist or evolve to sustain on something else from this planet. I’m 100% sure neither of these scenarios will ever happen.

A virus is a reactive organism. What I mean by that is it reacts to it’s surrounding rather than being proactive and being prepared for things to come. A virus lacks basically any ability to change without an external force or reason. So if you don’t know a virus enters a host and tricks the host cells to make copies of it inside the body. Sometimes those copies become mutated due to many factors inside of the host. Think of it like the virus is one parent and your are the other. The virus cannot reproduce or make more of itself with you but the new virus cells that have been created inside of you can be different then the original virus. That’s how we end up with different strands or variants of any virus wether it’s corona, influenza or human immunodeficiency.

Ok so I’m not in any way a doctor or a scientist but I would like to think I paid enough attention in science specifically biology and have a high enough level of comprehension to understand. But feel free to correct me if I have misspoke on anything.

During this “pandemic” I have witness exactly how reactive we as a species have become despite all of our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. We reacted to this virus I think instead of taking a more proactive approach. This is just my opinion. Looking at the things we did I believe I am justified in my thinking. Instead of focusing efforts on how to make the human body stronger and less suseptible to contracting a virus we panicked and told everyone to quarantine and stay away from each other. Don’t get me wrong it was I guess somewhat useful in the aspect of keeping those not infected from getting infected for that period of time. However the ones that were already infected wether asymptomatic or not, their bodies were still creating copies of the virus and it’s only natural that now we have mutated strains very different from the one originally discovered.

I think a more proactive approach would have been giving the public more ideas on how to improve health and our immune systems instead of the bandaids like masks and social distancing. Not to mention the amount stress the entire population was under with daily updates on covid cases and deaths. The mind is a powerful things and stress will definitely weaken it and it’s ability to do it’s main job, which is keeping the rest of the body alive. I’m sure we’ve all heard those cases of people being told they are never going to walk or talk again and somehow they over come the odds and achieve those things. Should you get to ask them how I pretty sure they would say through will and perseverance. On the other hand I’m also sure we’ve all heard of someone finding they have a terminal condition like cancer and once given the news health starts to decline very dramatically. You are as healthy or as diseased as you allow your mind to think you are.

By far I’m not saying that we could just think this virus away, rather as a collective be in better health. A healthy person has a less likely chance of becoming a host. Hence the fear for people with underlying conditions. This virus is very real no matter if it’s man made or over exaggerated by the media and governments. But we do not have to be reactive, waiting to get sick and hoping not die from it. We can be proactive and strengthen our body and do everything we can to avoid becoming it’s next host and it’s next victim.

I hope everyone has a safe weekend. Make it a productive and positive one no matter what you may be doing. As always thanks for stopping by and I’ll be here bright and early, hopefully on time Monday morning.

-K

My New Favorite Movie Genre

Another daily blog post from yours truly as promised. (And on time)

If you know me personally then you know for at least a decade my favorite movie genre was scary horror/thriller films. As of last night my new favorite is survivalist movies like The Descent and The Ruins. What sealed the deal was The Jungle starring Daniel Radcliffe. I won’t spoil the ending because I truly hate spoilers. If I may implore you to go watch it if you have the time. Well worth the watch even if it’s not something you would normally be interested in.

Since I was younger I enjoyed horror films like the Chucky films , the Conjuring series and nearly all of the Haunting in ** movies. Seed of Chucky, The Conjuring 2 and Haunting in Connecticut being my favorites. Then along came 47 Meters Down and I slowly started to rethink my preferences. I can say with much conviction that I despise and don’t enjoy chick flicks or love films like The Notebook at all.

I generally also enjoy apocalyptic movies like Bird Box and A Quiet Place but now that my vision of moving off grid at some point is crystal clear survivalist type movies seem to draw me in a lot more. Of course I still enjoy jump scares so movies with those qualities as well as a man vs nature type settings move to the top of the list hands down.

Watching these types of movies also sparked the realization in me that humans are the most ill-equipted species to simply survive on this planet which years ago would have probably triggered some kind of depressive state. Like when I realized the way we house and kill mass amounts of animals like livestock such as cows, pigs, chickens and even smaller game like rabbits. Needless to say I handled that information quite poorly as I allowed myself to spiral into depression and had my first and hopefully last suicide attempts. Trying to make myself feel better about being human I went vegan for some time and started to repurpose everything almost becoming what most would call a hoarder. Slowly I pulled myself out of that and took the knowledge and instead of sulking forever evolved into the more self conscious man I am today.

It’s comforting to know that I have a skill set that would get me by for at least a little while should society as we know it crumble or I become stranded in the wilderness. Skills a bit more that just how to create fire, shelter and hunt small game. However I do intend to improve and build on those skills tremendously over the next year or so as I prepare for the disconnect from the rat race of what is “normal” life. How often do you think how helpless you would be if you couldn’t go to the store and pick food from the shelf or suddenly lost the privilege of clean running water at a moments notice? Even simple things like having shoes could dramatically alter your every day life. Scary isn’t it? Most of us go day to day with out even the thought. But let me stay on topic.

I can’t stress enough how the movie The Jungle sat with me, to the point the ending gave me chills and that heavy feeling in your stomach like your crying on the inside. At least give it a try I’m pretty sure we get pressured to watch movies just because “rotten tomatoes” gives it a million thumbs up or whatever when in reality it’s just another movie. I can remember how much they pushed Black Panther on us all. I still haven’t watched it mainly because I’m not really into DC or marvel superhero type films but mostly because I like going against the grain and as a black man it felt as if I was expected by everyone to go see it because of the all black cast. In hindsight I can recall how much Bird Box was pushed as well and I simply refused to watch it because of all the publicity. I watched it maybe 6 months to a year later and I was actually very impressed. Do y’all remember all of the “take your blindfold off” memes ha ha. So I guess don’t judge a movie by it’s box office numbers

I can’t recall the name of the movie but it was about 3 people trapped on the thingy that brings skiers to the top of the slopes, that was a very good movie as well another one of my top picks of the survivalist type movies. As of now the fore mentioned movie and The Ruins are my top 2 and I probably will rewatch them when given the chance. Oddly enough I’m not a big fan of tv shows with the same theme like Naked and Afraid. Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls was intriguing for a while but it loses me because he is basically out there with a camera crew wether they assist him or not.

At some point I will make a list of “must see” movies ifyou are like me and find the genre at all the least bit intriguing. Simply searching “survivalist films” brings up a really weird algorithm and makes it difficult to really pinpoint the good ones. Originally I thought the post would contain a lot more words but I seem to have run out of steam and I’m holding back the spoilers like a dump you need to get rid of at a carnival. No one spoiled it for me so I would like to give my readers the same opportunity. BUT if you HAVE seen The Jungle please by all means let’s talk about it at some point.

As always, thanks for reading and supporting.

-K