Our Brush With Corona

Epilogue

I thought that I would end my story earlier, but continued as I could not part without sharing a few thoughts about this nemesis of humanity.

COVID 19 has proved itself as a powerful adversary, having arrived on the global stage more than a year ago, when it first dropped anchor. It has grown from strength to strength, treating with almost utter disdain, all predictions of its demise made by pundits. Moreover, it has proved that it has a voracious all-consuming appetite, no racial, geographical, gender or other preference shown by it.

But is it the first of its kind? Certainly not, its closest and perhaps more potent cousin having visited our world in the form of Spanish Flu, about a century ago. These viruses of common lineage follow a similar pattern. They enter the world stage, shrouded in mystery, carrying an element of surprise and seriously challenge the various institutions, infrastructure and knowledge bank that man has built over the years. These pandemics have been there since time immemorial and will be there long after we have departed. Nothing can be done about it since they are an integral part of what we call life itself.

Having acknowledged its might should we show a defeatist approach towards it? Most certainly not!

The human race has reached this stage by sheer dint of hard work and one tiny virus can definitely not have the capability to blow it all away. These things enter the world as catalysts to bring up corrective measures. With their entry, the entire medical, research and administrative framework gets a rejig and after due corrections, the society at large, moves on.

Well, let the medical infrastructure do its work. What can we common men, as individuals, offer as our contribution to this big fight?

The answer is not elaborate. The key is to follow some old-fashioned self-discipline to crank up our immunity systems so that they form a first line of defense to the pandemic. The pandemic should not treat us as cannon fodder. How dare it!

And how do we boost our immunity systems? Numerous pieces of information abound, especially at times, when these pandemics are in full flow and I am not about to show a lamp to the sun. But my humble offering on this topic is this, in this fast-running world the virtues of living a simple life, where our daily routines are well set, where we eat simple freshly cooked or raw food (salads and fruits), where we are rested through good sleep, where we keep ourselves as far as possible away from the rat race and the resultant stress,  where we get some re-energizing early morning exercise to get us started for the day, where we try to keep our   positivity intact, where we keep a cheerful disposition and spread cheer, especially among the aged around us, help us vastly in achieving this goal.

I have found that the time spent with kids and the aged is the most reinvigorating and relaxing. Then why do we in the later part of our lives, spend all our time with our kids only and shirk our duties towards the aged ones, especially our parents. Why not give them a part of ourselves?

Mankind duly aided by science will always progress and it should progress, for all things that are stagnant, decay in the end. And where there will be progress there will be back breaking work. But in this larger picture, there is certainly no harm in filling our being with positivity, is it?

At the end I would like to thank everyone for going through my story even though the subject is an uninteresting one, and hope that they have found something useful in it.

......The End......