You know what's funny, and when I say funny, I mean sad-funny? I almost wasn't going to write this because I know that people who read this--friends of mine even--would gleefully tear me apart. But then I thought: that is stupid. I'm going to write it.
So yeah, Eric and I got the Pfizer vaccine today.
I am a researcher by training but also by nature. I spend most of my waking hours trying to reeducate people on the risks and benefits of diffcult choices. And SO MUCH of what we're working against in my field is fear-based information using exaggeration, hearsay, and anecdote without setting risks and benefits in their larger context. And unless we have rigorous, systematic data collection, we cannot hope to do so accurately.
On social media I see so much shaming, fear-based language, passing along of unverified reports, and even trolling of friends as well as strangers and salaciously reporting when something bad happens (whether or not it was related to Covid or to the vaccine). Very few people are even reading the original research studies. Instead, they're coming to this with their minds already made up (either way).
Humans do this all the time. It's called confirmation bias. I'm not exempt--I can point to so many times in my life that I've done it, too. We fools ourselves when we think we're rational creatures and that we make decisions and form opinions after evaluating the evidence. But we rarely do so; we already have our minds up and we find evidence that confirms our worldview and reject the evidence that doesn't fit. We don't even do this consciously. And ironically, when we encounter evidence that strongly contradicts our beliefs, that actually *strengthens* our belief systems. (Google "belief perseverence" and "backfire effect.")
And none of us think that we are the unreasonable, irrational ones. The "other" people are. Of course, right?
Our cupboards were nearly bare, so we stocked up at Lidl afterwards. I have some good meals planned: creamy herbed porkchops (for tonight), zucchini & parmesan soup, roasted sausages & fennel, sunchoke soup.
We couldn't pass up the gorgeous sunny weather, so we took the afternoon off to go to the beach. Well, Dio was up picnicking at the chateau with friends. The rest of us got lots of sun and a tiny bit of sunburn. I wasn't brave enough to swim, but Inga and Ivy were. Eric caught a fish and got stung on the lip by a jellyfish--pretty much the only part of his entire body that was exposed!
Dio's birthday is coming up soon. I hoped to make his cake tonight, but I didn't have the right size cake pan. I took a quick walk to two different stores, but one was closed and the other one, a "hypermarche," was out of stock!
Inga got a Rubik's cube with her birthday money, and Dio filmed himself tonight. He noticed that he was doing silly things with his tongue and lips (not on purpose) and gave me permission to post the video 🙂 Enjoy.
One of my friend wrote about doing 1000 Hours Outside and I loved the idea. We have charts printed off and our first day filled out.
I have been reading your blog for at least 10 years. This is one of my favorite posts. And not because you got the vaccine (though 2’thumbs up from me). You summed up our how we are as a society in a few sentences better than anyone else could.
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