these are world changing times and it is in these times that we look to a the rock solid foundations of our lives. the market has failed us, science (until there is a freely available vaccine) has failed us, the government has failed us. yes they are all trying as hard as they can, some more than others. yet, still, there will be great suffering.
yet in who have we been able to find solace? who has always been there, slavishly, in obedience to the corporate market that profits unjustly from their labor, in spite of personal health, literally giving us our daily bread. it has been in the working class service and retail workers of the world, who are deemed essential, quite officially, by government across the planet.
a life or death crisis quickly, by necessity, reveals what is real and what is bullshit. we are in a 2020 Revelation, the great billionaire industries miraculously silenced, and quite voluntarily. it is not the high and mighty celebrities and talk show hosts and movie heroes that are essential. it is the working class. they are there every day, selling you coffee, your lunch, driving your bus, or train, ringing up and bagging hundreds of pounds of groceries and home goods. IMO the production and delivery of food is one of, if not the highest, moral quality of a society. access to good food and water more than anything helps us ease suffering.
these things are not glamorous or shiny, they are sustenance, they feed us, satisfy our base needs. this is one of the arguments for God and Creation, that He has gifted us with a uniquely anthropomorphically-tuned cosmological existence. the planet we are on and were born from are tuned to our very needs. our material bodies must continuously consume in order to live, and God has provided us with this garden planet wherein all our needs met, with proper (intelligent?) distribution through proper proportions. air is the most needed thing for a human body to input. a person without air will die very quickly. thus oxygen is the most plentiful thing in the world, more or less everywhere you go. next in importance is water, which makes up 71% of the planet. it's in the ground, it's in the ocean, it's falling out of the sky. he took care of that need too. next in importance is food. you can see how this all works. essential things are plentiful. (or at least this is the Godly state)
interestingly, you can look at that from the other angle, at things which we consume that are NOT essential. shiny gems and gold and precious minerals are very rare things, found not very easily on the Earth. they are not entirely useful either. they do not provide any lasting value to life. they are pretty to look at, but that is only when you are looking at them, so it is a temporal experience. the essential things, they provide sustenance, they feed the soul, they give life. in these trying times it is a good idea to take stock of what is truly important to our lives.
