There is a really pervasive narrative I've been hearing a lot since the beginning of the pandemic: that a lot of people are very confident vocalising they don't need to worry about getting ill, because they have a strong immune system.
I don't think many folk realise the ableism and individualism that this reeks of. What alarms me about it is the display of health as an entitlement. People parade their good health around like it is a reward for all of their hard efforts, as if life circumstances, genetics, chance and socioeconomic situation play no part in their well-being.
I understand why people want to be proud or something that we're taught to aspire to, yet I'm left baffled by the insensitivity of people who are basically professing “I am not weak like those sick and disabled people. I am strong. I am putting in effort.”
I've pondered a lot on what could be the root of this lack of critical empathy; the wilful denial that it could all change on the spin of a coin (or change on whatever COVID variant we're on now.). One of my lasting guesses is that it is easier to pin it on a sense of control of our own immune systems than to acknowledge our fear of mortality. Most of us live lives which are so sanitised away from the notion of death and our own deterioration that any reference to our fallibility is taken as a personal affront.
And I don't think it is intended with malice, but I know it is not proclaimed with care.
When we talk about our own circumstances, these loud proclamations, which only build us up if we're standing on top of others to make us feel better, ring pretty hollow, pretty quickly. Even if – and I stress this – even if the main person you are trampling to feel better about yourself is former you.
If we're lucky enough, most of us are going to get to an age where our bodies begin to fail us, to be able to move less and do less, and I think we would be wise to begin learning how to think of people like this as strong and worthy too, and probably sooner rather than later.
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