Vaxing Life

'Vax' is 2021's monumentally defining word. When the Oxford English Dictionary says so, it is legitimately something which has changed our perception of the word itself, not only medically - but also in our personal lives. We all know what it means, of course. Driven by competition instigated by the pandemic, vaccination has almost become a reeling intoxication to develop as much antibodies as possible, as quick as possible. Demand and supply chains are continuously taking a severe hit. Vaccinated individuals are getting infected again despite second dosages. Talk about ironic.

Before I say anything more, it's kind of our fault too. I go out (armed with triple masks, headgear and sanitisers) and see so many people with their masks loosely hanging from the air like some trick gag. It makes me feel like Bridget Jones wearing that bunny costume in a party where the dress code was changed to "beige" at the very last minute. I still get innumerable lamentations and eye-rolls at this discrepancy of public health. Maybe police warnings will teach us a lesson which is long overdue. It's like that math instructor who just had to bang her ruler on the table to grab our attention. Ah, how time catches up to us.

Crying helps me a lot during quarantine. It feels good. This again is a vaccination to ease our collective depression, however small or big. But sometimes, we tend to get too hung up on it. After all, human suffering cannot be prevented - but it can be resolved. We hang on to the thread of getting up everyday in the morning, however difficult it truly can be. That in itself is real courage.

Our emotions often get the better of us. Sometimes, the will of giving up is so overpowering that we do succumb to it: even at the cost of our unhappiness. We justify it by saying that our self sacrifice is for the sake of the larger good. Tell me, how many times have you compromised on yourself for external desires? How many times have you merged into the shadows for those who don't even care about you? I am guilty of these. Everyone is, more or less. This is because we tend to forget the substance and meaning of "the larger good".

Vaxing our personal lives has taken on a genuinely new avatar for all of us - unlike Facebook's Meta. Vaccination is more than just a band-aid to temporarily reduce the effects of any dilemma, be it COVID-19 or acute depression. It must not put us in the liability of getting negatively hit a second time. We must not put ourselves in the liability of getting negatively hit a second time.

Sometimes, it's our own vax to do the difficult things for solely ourselves.

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