By Alexandra V. Maragha

Not only does September 22^nd, 2020 mark the first day of fall, it also precisely marked 200,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States, a number that should mute a country to rethink everything. With every type of unrest building to a potential pinnacle point of no return for Americans physically, mentally, socially, financially, spiritually, individually, and responsibly, the question of how to continue forward is asked with only one true answer: change.

The future is not bleak. Despite opinions, beliefs, and actions, we are the same country that always existed only through the single tie of individual perseverance no matter the situation. Now, Americans are more vocal and exposed through technology to know and say what one thinks and feels. This seemingly transparent shift is a desperate cry away from the past’s complete lack of access to unedited thoughts of politicians, public figures, teachers, neighbors, and even family members. But has this digital soapbox brought value, or has every single issue become diluted and blurred within the technological and social media overload that has now taken central force in the lives of Americans?

As social distancing has created an illusion of social connectedness through individualized self-made digital bubbles this has altered social behavior, consciously and subconsciously, to seek like thoughts to hear them repeated back as false comforts of social confirmation. The illusion of hearing back like thoughts without internal or external questioning brings one to feel accepted as well as part of a group. This results in only boosting one’s own sense of false cognitive superiority while everything else becomes ignored or a socially distant group mentality of “see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil” then evil does not exist.

Where is the discourse? Where is space for ideas to flourish for a society to flourish? How can Americans stand to demand their rights and opinions be heard when true results are not attainable as “talking tables” have not even been established and in many cases do not want to be established.

The first realization that most Americans need to understand is that change no longer exists as a verb but only as a noun (or more likely a meaningless hashtag) as most people do not want to act to change. Human behavior cannot handle the change of a habit because it has developed as part of the cognitive processing of the human being and becomes a filter through which the rest of the world is seen and understood. Asking someone to change the way they eat or even the time they eat can formulate a crisis within the individual as they do not know how to process the request, or if it is “forced”. Panic, rejection, and unwillingness to understand the reasoning behind such change triggers an overall difficult process for a person to ultimately make a change, even for an immediate purpose. Those who might be able to accept the idea of change find it hard to maintain, as “old habits die hard”. The individual usually has a developed construct where signals in their brain falsely crave or need the developed habit, not out of functional necessity but as a social-emotional comfort. The need for the behavior is what becomes desired, rather than the habit or behavior itself. Therefore, the satisfaction of desire from wanting to want something never becomes satisfied.

Most Americans find themselves at some turning point as social distancing and behavioral changes have taken effect because of COVID-19. Society is craving the behavior of comfort more than ever, rather than an actual behavior itself. This leads to rejection for new behaviors and true change within anyone to take place. Rather a meaningless debate of meaningless words with outcomes with no responsibility in any regard exists as the justification of actions is now only based on a cycle of responses, blaming both the chicken and the egg.

True alignment of organic thoughts and new ideas are reaching the end of the life wire. Entertainment, dancing for no reason, meaningless talking-head chatter, “liking” nothing, lowering the value of education and information, bountiful scandals, crime, oppression, blame, and years of broken systems are recycled re-runs of self-serving societal oppression of intellectual discourse. Popular culture has infected society to become blind submitting to the ten-second overloaded attention span mentality of settling for information chaos to rule through eternal dissatisfaction. The demand for meaningless objects away from space, noise away from quiet, and impulsiveness away from reflection and meaningful purpose hinders a better quality of life to take place. Yet, the subjects of this great society love to remain ruled through self-dictated limits of thought allowing themselves to be stuck in a mental construct of being overworked, underpaid, poorly educated, and systematically produced and monitored. The “why bother” mentality falls in deeper for the societal “re-runs” of societal standards to have greater ratings, rather than striving to change within to become unoppressed to have a “half full” motivated mentality.

COVID-19 penetrated this chain to where the faults of societal systems became exposed as Americans took advantage of the time forced at home and pondered. However, the outcome has lifted for more chaos rather than constructive results to take place, further feeding the hurricane of societal unrest and structure that is now rotating faster.

The fantasy of being part of a top-down structure in any format has continued to hold bringing comfort during chaos while the creators keep the magic show going. If the same audience shows up to watch each night waiting and believing something new will happen, but it never does the same show will keep going. So, who is to be blamed? The act that does not deliver or the audience for showing up night after night expecting something new mirroring insanity, of doing the same thing repeatedly expecting different results.

The mutual relationship between supply and demand can never create change because it is constructed to rule out the unknown. Unexpected shifts are always anticipated only to re-direct consumers to remember how they felt when they wanted something and exploit that feeling. It is not the object or experience itself, but only the game and psychosocial need of desire and acquirement which motivates the purchase and maintains the status only through societal recognition and prestige. Even without the later, the chase is what is desired more than the outcome, giving little true meaning to processing real information or experiences, but only processing perceived feelings and the desire to simply “feel” any way possible.

The regurgitation and repetition of information further the motivation of an individual to reach temporary emotional stability through satisfying the desire of behavior, rather than actual cognitive processing of information to occur to which behaviors are formed. Until Americans can stop repeating, stop desiring change, and realize that very few people actually change, the status of the COVID-19 vacuum will continue to seduce and surrender American society to its own false behaviors and dissatisfying outcomes.

Now is the time to examine and think, not repeat, about all sides and for all people. To study all structures and systems and daily norms we follow, interact with, and are seemingly part of. Otherwise, Americans will continue to be ruled by their own false desires of false constructs to how life will continue to be understood. Responsibility and accountability and quiet evaluation before attempting rational discourse in any matter are how to move forward with meaning with true satisfaction. Otherwise, all of society will keep wandering, with no depth of purpose, but only for the sake of change in any construct and context, leaving American society as a whole truly lost in its own meaningless spin.