The Weeklies: A Very Important Conversation

Last Friday I woke up at 7 am, crossed my street while the sun was still climbing, and got into a Lyft. I was on an emergency-errand, for something urgent that could not be fixed from home. I had a pair of gloves in my pocket but I looked silly taking them off and putting them on again just to hold my cell phone. I slipped a mask over my face and instantly felt like I couldn't breathe. 

"I love this," my driver said jovially about the New York City Coronavirus Lockdown, he was floating down Atlantic with some ease. "There's no traffic."

We were inching toward the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Apparently, it's the end of the world," he said. "Lots of people are trying to figure out who the antichrist is."

It was then that I started to observe him. I couldn't see his reflection in the rear view mirror -- not even his eyes. He was in a blue zip up hoodie, slacks, tennis shoes. He was likely in his twenties.

He rattled a list of preachers and world leaders who he believed were potential candidates for the antichrist.

"The third coming of Jesus will happen again, maybe," he said. I was used to this sort of speech, my relatives were of various denominations and extremely interested in different theories of what and how the end would come. He talked to me about the rapture, then he surprisingly said:

"The Simpsons have been able to predict a lot." 

"Really?" I said. We were now on the bridge. The New York skyline was veiled in fog. And he was right -- in Manhattan it was dead. We neared my destination and he said:

"I've never really opened up to a passenger about these things before, but today it just felt like time." I couldn't tell if it was a come-on, but he didn't turn in his seat like the drivers who are hitting on me do.

"Well, that's OK," I said. I know in times like these, people are reaching to make sense of everything. Often they accept the explanation that matches a few of their previously held beliefs without really thinking. They just need something, anything, to remove the uncertainty.

"What do you think?" he asked.

I admitted to him what I truly believed (which was extremely far off and more scientific than his beliefs), punctuating it with, "But I'm always questioning."

"Me too!" he said excitedly, "I'm sort of questioning. I don't really know if I believe in the rapture or even if I believe in God, or maybe even this Simpsons thing."

"The important thing is that you always question everything you believe periodically, it's important to think critically," I said. Its a knee jerk reaction to tell someone that their conspiracy theories are "crazy," but you'll never win that way. You have to give the person confidence in their own tools and skills. To remind them that they have it inside them to use logic, to parse through the information, to think critically.

He nodded but the idea seemed to scare him.

I got out of the car but I wanted to tell him everything I've learned about life and opinion, my usual string of ideas: make sure you truthfully look at data and be willing to change your opinions based off of it. Remember that you are not your opinions, they are separate things from you, and just because your opinions change doesn't mean that it changes who you are. 

But instead I crossed the street against the light -- it was easy, there were no cars -- and reminded myself that I'll never be the inspirational type and that he'll probably forget everything I said in the short time it takes for him to get a new passanger. I embrace negativity more than positive feelings. I find the darkness comforting. Even when I try to sound uplifting, I sound like a pre-recorded message; hallow and rehearsed.

But I wasn't born that way, I was made that way. I think my PTSD that allows me to live with a constant baseline level of dread. I'm repulsed when someone says: "Hang in there!" or "This will get better!" because of my inability to believe it and because I am censored from disagreeing. We're in a feel-good era, only one emotion allowed (thanks, Instagram). I'm silenced by everyone else; a society locked into positivity. 

When I entered the building and said hello to the security guard by pulling down my mask just so he could briefly see my face. I spent about ten minutes there before calling another Lyft back home. My driver only said "hello" before our totally silent ride into Brooklyn. In that brief twenty to thirty minutes since my last cab, the fog had not lifted. I wondered at what time it would move, what neighborhood would it creep to next, and if it would settle as densely.