It's gsltng, imo

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I am an acronym. Specifically, I am an LSI. Locally stranded individual. I am also negative. As I've told people I've shared my COVID-19 status with, I never thought being negative can feel so... positive. 

As in any era, language has adapted to the times. Clichés abound within this environment of uncertainty. My pet peeve is 'amid/amidst'. 

In a land where people cough up acronyms and abbreviate everything, during a time of omg, ikr, smh, five months into lockdown, we swim in acronyms: APOR, all the quarantine classifications - ECQ, MECQ, GCQ, MGCQ and tomorrow they're introducing another one with a new set of do's and don'ts. 

Instead of putting those that have not been thought about within an existing label, we create a new one each and every time until it all gets muddled up and loses meaning. 

Then we are called stubborn. They send the police to address a health issue and use intimidation to answer livelihood. 

Now people don't know anymore and thus, the many calls to hotlines, and questions on the FB post or Twitter threads. Sometimes the questions are answered. And then asked again. An endless cycle for every new classification.

It may be a strategy to confuse people, leading them to question themselves, second-guessing their anger because maybe in their confusion, they miss something. So irate people check and double-check and ask so that by the time we raise the issues, we have forgotten to be angry. We are left with just embers of the rage. The passion, dissipated. The heart, tired. The mind, blank.

 It sparks for a fleeting moment on social media, but the longer it drags on, no one protests, argues, discusses or whimpers. A nation being gaslighted. 

If it is planned, it is brilliant. If it is not, it is gastronomical luck. Like in the movies based on true events. 

The universe cringes while we decide which is it, what to call it and if we will do something about it. 

The gods must be cray, rofl. 

August 16, 2020

"I am an X in an indeterminate equation. And that X is the rock upon which I stand." - Mario Puzo

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