Denial

I was born in 1947. Einstein had developed the theory of relativity and scientists had created atom bombs. But we did not take seriously that smoking was bad for us. Everyone seemed to smoke, even John Roberts and the other cool junior high kids. And I ate sugar laced with cereal for breakfast. Sugar Crisp was my favorite. I added sugar to it. Eventually Sugar Crisp just changed its name to Golden Crisp and became an overnight health food. In January 2020, we knew about Coronavirus but thought it was an over hyped flu that might kill a few more people than usual in China. We often dismiss notice of danger because we have so many false alarms. Every time Al Roker warns us about a major storm developing in the Atlantic, we do not get hit with a Hurricane Katrina. Y2K was not the computer threat we expected. The dinosaurs saw plenty of shooting stars in the sky before the big meteor that allegedly led to their demise. Right now we have knowledge of dangers to our very existence and we have incredibly better technical advantages than the dinosaurs who did not even wear masks. Yet we will continue to misplace priorities and ignore serious threats. Because we are human. We are more wired to diligently recover from disasters than to prevent them in the first place. I just returned from the Skin Surgery Center where they have carved me up for over thirty years. I ignored warnings about protecting my skin in the sun even though my parents regularly wore bandages from excisions for every skin cancer from basal cell to melanoma. Only after my first excision in my early 40’s did I change my habits. I boarded up the barn long after the dinosaurs escaped.