Conspiracy theories

There are a few things I can be ashamed of in my life. One of them is an episode of fascination with conspiracy I went through on the verge of adolescence and adulthood. Countless theories of other than official course of events in 9/11 terrorist attacks and climate change denialism were my focus for a while around 2007. For a grown-up, yet immature lad the uncanny explanations were compelling and fortunately, meaningless in the long run.

Then came the tenth day of April in 2010 when a Polish plane carrying 96 people tragically crashed in Smolensk. Circumstances of the accident have immediately become a fertile ground for conspiracy theories, which for years continued to mark a divide line in the Polish politics. I was three years older and much wiser, not to fall for stories of assassination, artificial fog, metal-hard birch, explosives found in the wreck and other stuff.

A year and a half ago an epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus broke out in China. The peril was shrugged off and covered up by the local authorities who acted belatedly. The virus, which could have been kept at bay, spilled all over the world and turned lives of virtually everyone upside down.

Now go back in time to July 2019 and imagine somebody telling you about lockdowns, overwhelmed health service, major increase in mortality, economy and social life running into a standstill, shut down industries, compulsory mask-wearing. You would laugh them off. The unimaginable has become a reality.

Here is what underlies each single conspiracy theory – an event so complex, so improbable, so hardly imaginable, going beyond people’s comprehension, that it calls for a simple clarification. A human mind does not like to make too much effort. It yearns for quick solutions instead of uphill and mind-bending pursuit of intricate truth.

People are sick of isolation, remote learning and working, restrictions. They hanker after normalcy. No wonder some of them, less intelligent and more gullible, fall for simple explanations, telling them the virus is a hoax, the pandemic had been planned in advance and under its guise a new order of the world is brought in. Such people have always been, yet in pre-Internet times just a handful of them were indulging in their vision of the world. With social media giving everybody a chance to share their thoughts, their visions are spread far too far and wide. They take fancy of (usually) poorly educated people who, having gotten familiar with shady articles, memes or video, claim to have knowledge superior to epidemiologists and virologists. 9/11 or Smolensk conspiracy theories referred to past events and were relatively harmless. Today, the narration of a false pandemic and bleating of the anti-vax movement can cost health and lives of millions of people. Disturbingly.

Being happy in Alaska - book review

Last Saturday, while being at loose end at my girlfriend’s mother house, I grabbed a book written by a Spanish psychologist which I’d spotted on a shelf and, with a prospect of finding myself some way of passing time until she does the make-up before setting off for the wedding, read it from cover to cover.

I am not fond of guides, nor any sorts of books which are meant to utterly change your life in the wake of the read. As a person who likes to dive into intricacies, fascinated with complexity of the world, I am unlikely to be convinced to quick fixes or delusive simple solutions.

What particularly does not take my fancy is the notion of carefree life cherished in the book. Carefree moments are essential, but unless you are a selfish hedonist, carefree life appears a detrimental daydream. Besides, it is easy to advise people to abandon all their worries if you are a healthy and wealthy bachelor. Try recommending this to somebody who needs to earn a livelihood and pay for a therapy of their terminally ill child! Even if circumstances are not that dire, life is generally about mundane stuff, punctuated with joyful moments, about obligations towards the nearest and dearest and making compromises to foster relationships.

To avoid an impression that my judgement of the book is one-sided, I have noticed several threads which I see eye to eye with the author.

Life ought to be put into perspective – instead of craving for more, we ought to appreciate what we have and notice others are not lucky enough to enjoy good health, financial comfort, satisfying job, happy relationships etc. Gratitude for little things and delight in little pleasures should fill our lives.

Mental strength is to be honed and developed in all stages of life. Life should not be about fretting and worrying.

Humans should accept the inevitable and learn to live with the prospect of it. If there is anything one can be sure about, it is, except for taxes, one’s own death. The decease is something you should not fear, like all events which you can’t escape. There are, of course, events which you may strive to avert, such as traffic accidents. But fearing them makes no sense as well. Taking precautions does make sense.

A rest is natural state of a human. I believe in a balanced life there should be time for work and for rest. To foster mental health, a human should know how to relax and recharge batteries, so that the working phase is used possibly effectively.

The author also gives valuable hints on talking to people with different views. In Poland, we tend to clash about politics and other stuff which draw divide lines in the society. When a dissenter becomes an enemy, any form of dialogue seems out of reach. Bridging the worlds which are apart is a craft and may help overcome discords within the family or friends.

Moving to the critical look at the book.

Having had an experience with episodes of depression and having gone an extra mile to understand the causes of the illness, I realise a blend of medicines and therapy is essential to cure a person affected by it. The milder the symptoms, the more therapy, the less pills, but in awful cases starting a therapy is impossible without bringing a patient into order with medicines. The author shrugs it off and claims a positive approach to life is sufficient to combat several mental disturbances. Such view is contrary to how evidence-based medicine (these days I am particularly sensitive to all assertions which undermine science) explains causes of mental disturbances and hence harmful. A change in approach is recommendable to grumblers and whiners, but not to mentally ill who need professional medical help.

The author seems to disregard the fact people have different personalities, different sets of traits, different psyches and those differences are innate. A human can decide to work to reshape themselves, but within reasonable limits of “staying yourself”. I realise the ideas of programming consciousness have grown popular recently, yet I remain sceptical towards them.

Two other concepts I find outlandish are that after a romantic relationship ends people can stay best friends (a separate post could be written why I believe this is not the best solution, except for situations when people have children) and that lack of particular skills stems from lack of self-belief in those skills. No, if somebody who lacks talent for driving believes they are a seasoned driver, they may bring misery on innocent people. I am not a talented football player and this does not come from my self-limitation or flawed belief. I just do not need to play football well to be happy and should not be ashamed of this. But overcoming my self-critical judgement to free up my potential to become a master on a football pitch sounds like a ridiculous idea.

All in all, the read of the book which had come into my hands accidentally was quite daunting. After a few months of reading-wise laziness, I am about to catch up. Several books ordered online in a local library and await my attention.

To a wedding

Just returned from a wedding ceremony and reception, the first one I attended since 2016.

Weddings have gained notoriety in the summer of 2020, as several of them were hotbeds of COVID-19 infections, leading to several participants being quarantined and some, sadly, hospitalised or deceased. Needless to say, a wedding is the last event during which a sanitary regime can be stuck to. I turned up there fully aware of risk and supposing that most guests (especially those who do not reside in Warsaw or around) have not been vaccinated. Well, hopefully with still low daily stats of new cases, we have not run across a super-spreader.

The one to get married was my girlfriend’s cousin. The nuptials ceremony was called off two times and finally the day named as restrictions eased. It was the first wedding since many years in their family, hence the excitement was palpable. For me, truth be told, such events are a no big deal I do not feel tempted to have my own memorable, lavish reception. Instead, I prefer a modest ceremony for family and friends. Besides, spending between fifty and one hundred thousand zloty for a one-night show appears to me as a far bigger waste of money than buying a SUV (though a wedding does not harm environment as an SUV does over its life cycle).

The wedding we attended was a typical zastaw się, a postaw się (literally run into debts to impress guests) one, albeit the expense was decreased by the venue of the reception which was in the middle of nowhere somewhere beyond Wyszków (fortunately, close to S8 expressway, whose proximity guarantee a fast comeback in the middle of the night).

I must admit this was the most weird wedding reception I have ever attended. As a company to my girlfriend, I knew nobody except for her, her mother, brother and his girlfriend, but truth be told, most guests seemed to know nobody except for their closest companions. On top, my girlfriend and her relatives shared my opinion nearly everybody had turned up to the reception treated their attendance as an unpleasant obligation to be ticked off and left behind. This was visible particularly on a dancing floor, where droves of people definitely were not witnessed. Also most people pushed along just after midnight to put themselves out of misery and return home early enough not to spend the entire Sunday morning sleeping off the event.

I wonder how many couples manage to tie a knot before restrictions are imposed again, if the Polish government decides (or is forced to) to bring some businesses to a halt if hospitalisations and death toll on account of COVID-19 begin to rise. Look at the approach of the British government which is set to lift all restrictions in a week, despite more than 30,000 new infections daily reported recently, with hospital admissions just creeping up (they rose 3 times, while new infections rose 16 times since trough in early May 2021) and deaths holding low thanks to vaccinating the 50+.

Pandemic diary – June 2021 notes

Thursday, 3 June 2021
A record-high number of 621,000 jabs administered on one day is reported, bringing the percentage of Poland’s fully vaccinated population to 20%.

Friday, 4 June 2021
In the UK the seven-day average of new cases is 100% up from early-May bottom. Those infected are mostly children, teenagers and young adults. 75% of adults in the UK have received at least one dose of a vaccine, 50% of adults are fully vaccinated.

Saturday, 12 June 2021
I get my second shot. Side effects – arm is less sore than after the first one. Besides – feeling just fine.

Tuesday, 15 June 2021
The Ministry of Health publishes vaccination statistics by residency (rather than vaccination centre location as hitherto). Warsaw can boast of the second-highest participation in the vaccination programme, with 58.81% of the city’s population (including children aged less than 12) to have received at least their first jab. Podkowa Leśna near Warsaw tops the chart, with participation of 59.38%. At the bottom of the list lies Lipnica Wielka in Małopolska where vaccine uptake is only 13.46%.

Friday, 18 June 2021
In the capital of Poland:
- 60.0% of residents have received at the one dose,
- 40.0% are fully vaccinated.
Feeling proud of my neighbours.

Monday, 21 June 2021
After scant testing on Sunday, a single-digit number of new cases is reported for the first time since March 2020. Sad news is that merely 25,000 people received their first jab yesterday.

Wednesday, 23 June 2021
Things are getting nasty in the UK. More than 16,000 new infections are reported, seven-day average reaches now over 11,300 and has doubled within 15 days.

Sunday, 27 June 2021
In Russia, one of 3 European countries where the Delta variant is prevalent (the UK and Portugal being two other ones) the seven-day average number of new infections doubled within 16 days and now reaches over 19,200 (vs. peak of the winter wave of almost 29,000). Local outbreaks have been witnessed in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In both cities local authorities have resorted to stringent measures, including compulsory vaccinations to crack down on the epidemic.

Monday, 28 June 2021
Bulgaria overtakes Poland in terms of number of tests carried out per 1 million citizens since the beginning of the pandemic. From now on, Poland is at the very nefarious bottom of the list. This does not bear testimony of current testing, which results in positivity rate below 1.0%, but is the aftermath of grossly inadequate testing in October an November 2020, as well as in March 2021.
My first in the (almost empty) office since March 2020. Feels ghastly, but the aircon is on.

Tuesday, 29 June 2021
One-third of Poland’s population fully vaccinated. Much enough to curb the spread of the virus, far too little to be close to herd immunity.
I buy a 90-day travelcard. Time to return to public transport, whenever possible. Although I will not work from the office regularly, yet it will come in useful for returning from the swimming pool (2 stops by bus) and for trips to town to socialise. Time to live it up before Delta variant gets a foothold in Poland.

Wednesday, 30 June 2021
I am coming up with a new customary month-end vaccination progress report.

1. Vaccine uptake in age groups

2. Vaccination status in the entire population of Poland