Waging War Against the Enemy We Cannot See

My mother, bless her soul, managed to instill within me the same desire to help others that she herself possessed.

That drive to assist means that I enjoy soothing the hurts and un-ruffling the feathers.  Violence and confrontation are anathema to me.

Which kinda sucks because we’re smack dab in the middle of a siege.

We fight every day now; waging war against our wants and desires in an effort to keep those most vulnerable safe.

Admittedly, the most dangerous thing most of us will have to storm during our service will be the couch we’ve unofficially been living on/in for the better part of a month, but I digress.

We are very much at war, and the front-line fighters are those amongst us who wear scrubs.

Doctors, nurses, and custodians are our heroes in this time of strife.  It is they who shoulder the lion’s share of the risk. It is their mind and their might which is subjected to the daily toil of fighting a thousand minor skirmishes wherein a single misstep could prove lethal.

Grocery workers, truck drivers, and food delivery workers are also important in helping us maintain a sense of normalcy in these most abnormal times.  We can still go to the store and find eggs, butter, and (occasionally) toilet paper because all of those men and women are willing to brave the risks and stock the shelves.

While running my dairy during the day provides me with a sense of accomplishment and contribution during the day, I am left with a grim sense of helplessness whenever I sit down to partake in my usual nocturnal writing session.

The questions I ask of myself in those tense moments where I face a blank page are almost endless.  What right do I have to spend my time doing something so inconsequential in such a momentous time? What good does it do to craft a story in a time where I should be crafting personal protective equipment instead?

The list is endless, the doubts and the fears and the omnipresent soul-sucking vacuum of our shared struggle await me each time.

For weeks now, I’ve been unable to reason or cajole myself into a position where the words can flow.  All acts of creation are done while our inner demons peek over our shoulders, but it’s hard to juggle external demons on top of internal ones.

Then I came to the answer.  It’s not an easy answer, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is the right one.

We have to fight.  I have to fight.

Those of us whose build with words or sounds must take a stand and thrust in our sickles with all our might.

Not for ourselves, but for everyone else.

Right now, men and women of all walks of life are either trapped within their homes or working harder than they ever thought possible.

To a man and woman, they need us to help them reconnect with a sense of normalcy.  They need that new video, that new podcast, that new blog post, that new song, that new story.

Now, more than ever, we must be willing to use every single trick that we’ve managed to accrue in our careers to fight on the battlefront that only we can face.  Not in the theater of meeting our physical needs. No, ours is a fight against the silent despair which threatens to overwhelm us all.

For we are the ones tasked with the convalescence of the soul.

So fight on, brothers and sisters, because there are men and women who are in dire need of the comforts that only creation can bring.

Soldierfully,

The Unsheathed Quill