Ebola: Come As You Are

Last night I may have contracted ebola. That's a very slim maybe.

I was at the local watering hole. Karaoke night. It's fun.

The karaoke master has about three gigs, rotating, between various bars. With that microphone, passing hand to hand. He was vomiting outside the pub. Stupidly I shared a smoke with him. So if he has it I now do, too. But that's okay.

He seemed to think it was just because he was drinking. (Maybe it was.) But still, vomiting? I asked him if he had a sore throat. He said no. But still. A heavy drinker, vomiting?

Ah, it's okay. I'll monitor myself. It's not like I haven't been here before...

When I was 14, I survived a head-on collision at highway speed. My only memory of the whole incident was the sound of the airplane engines through the blackness. I was thrilled that I was on an airplane: I was a kid and loved aircraft. I tried to sit up, but couldn't. They were flying me from Sault Ste Marie to an advanced paedeatric unit in London, Ontario (here in Canada). (My mom, who was injured much worse, they flew on a jet.) I didn't fully regain consciousness for about a week. I was smashed badly. So I've been through an ordeal like this.

Anyway: ebola...

One of the reasons I write about disasters as a private citizen is because it allows me to go into the twilight zone. And disasters are twilight zone events. I can use my expertise and say things that I wouldn't be permitted to as a member of an organization. I was a game designer in a hospital, doing mass casualty simulations. The artistic mindset allows you to cut through the mass of grey limbo disaster preparedness literature... which drones on and on. It allows you to just screen out the useless chaff and point to the heart of an issue. That can save lives.

(My ebola article has received a LOT of exposure, and if it saved some time and pointed experts in the right direction early on, then I'll have accomplished something.)

Problem is nobody recognizes this talent during peactime. The kind of things you say sound too crazy. During peacetime... that artistic mindset to "normal" people. I also have Aspergers Syndrome... which means I'm very good at recognizing patterns... This artistic mindset irritates ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. I'm a marginalized individual now because of that. Hey, that's not a new story: difficult artist marginalized by society. Geez, never heard of that now, have we?

Eh... It's the prophet's burden: being seen as crazy. Cause these things are full of "crazy talk". Everyone knows pandemics happened only in history. It's crazy to think another would happen again. (Until.. you know... it's happening.) As a person who was almost killed at 14 I learned what was really sane and what was crazy. That the things that ordinary people think are so important really are hollow and trivial when placed against the backdrop of an entire human life. I know people think I'm nuts because I do all of these creative projects. I think they're all nuts...

Anyway, even in my discussion of ebola in prior facebook posts and whatnot I've held back on what I knew from my work on Pandemic Response, the simulation, funded by the Pentagon (yup...), to train hospitals in dealing with pandemics. Basically, the pattern is that it will arrive here, eventually.

So as an artist, I recognize that the twilight zone shit is actually the real stuff that underpins our lives. Most people don't become aware of this until they're near death and it's too late. They have a lot of stuff and empty trophies, which suddenly don't mean much. Then maybe they see they could've been part of a magic collaboration of life, if they had only realized at the time that those "crazy" wizards they knew were not crazy after all... That he was one of those crazy folks who had life in its proper perspective all along. And you missed out on his magic.

The opposite can happen to the prophet of doom as well. Their warning may be heeded by the people, after which the apocalypse is prevented. Then the prophet is ridiculed.

Geez, we wizards just can't win here now, can we?

(Ah... I'm ranting here. Enough of that.)

It's okay. I'll self-isolate if I become symptomatic. I'll monitor myself and present at the nearest ER if I start vomiting or whatever. If I'm going to get it, I'd rather get it now and get it over with.

In this outbreak ebola is scoring a 50% fatality rate. You know what that means, right? It means it looks deep into your soul and simply asks you a question: Do you want to live? Are you willing to fight for that? That's what a 50% survival rate means. From the outside, from the statistical perspective, it's a coin toss. But from the dynamic perspective... which I've come to learn is more truthful, though it doesn't have the deceptive golden idol of numbers which statistics have... From the dynamic perspective living or dying now is a decision. About half the people in the world really would let go if given a chance. (And that's okay.)

On the other hand, it may just be genetic. A particular keyhole that's missing in your genes, which the virus can't plug into. If that's the case, then it really is just a coin toss.

Probably it's a little of both.

No matter. If I come down with ebola I'm going to live. That's my decision. I've been here before. That's my answer to this question. Bring it on, bitch.

(Okay, maybe I shouldn't tempt fate... The last thing we need is people being complacent about this deadly disease. And... oh yeah... Travel bans WILL save lives.)

When it came time for me to sing karaoke last night, I went up and made a "public service announcement" to the crowd. "Attention: If you are coming down with symptoms of ebola... Present to your nearest ER..." It was funny. It drew a lot of howls and laughs from the audience, and I smiled. Dark humour is a great way to cope. Nobody really took it too seriously. But at the same time I still wanted to put that thought into their minds. (I've come to learn you need to sell the end-of-the-world just like any other thing...)

Then I sang "Come As You Are", by Nirvana. Which I think captures the spirit of this ancient disease that evolved in the jungles our bodies remember from eons ago. As if the singer were the virus, coming to visit us, like an old memory...

Update: Here's the Facebook thread on this story...