What I feel? Pain behind my right ear, congestion like a pipe has burst inside my head and is constantly leaking. Usually a hyper person, I slug and drag myself throughout the day even although the symptoms subside as the day move along. My symptoms get worst when I put my head on the pillow and I usually wake up feeling much worst. I feel like drowning and sometimes I get asthma attacks.

As my symptoms get worst at night, I have blamed pillows, bed sheets, rugs, mold in the house, even allergy to spouse’s clothes. This puzzle has followed me for decades but now with the awareness of COVID-19 I realized that I may be the one triggering my own allergies at night.

I was feeling fine last night until I started to stretch and doing a head inversion which my faced got covered by my hair. Immediately I started to have an allergy reaction. Knowing that COVID-19 sticks to the hair made me realize that pollen and other allergens may also stick to my hair and trigger my allergies making me feel worst at night.

Could it be possible?

Update on 2024/02/14: I have since been sleeping with silk hair caps and my allergies have greaten disminished! Who knew?

The medium has indeed become the message but there is so much noise in the medium that the message gets lost. In other words, information like the one shared in the article doesn’t reach the people who need it most because there is so much disinformation through digital media that the message itself looses its sense.

Is it a matter of information and facts or humans trusting each other? What other ways can we use to connect people with facts?

We have been comparing this time with war times. During war our ancestors trusted each other. Even the enemy. They knew who their enemies were. We don’t. Trust has been lost. It’s not even about truth anymore.

Yes, we need access to the facts. We need to present the facts (truth is individual, we each have our own) but it’s clear that having access to facts does not suffice since we don’t know who to trust. Until we look with much lesser bias eyes and accept that we have a much deeper issue we may not fix it, and worst, we may be just potentializing it. Politicians (we put them in power), scientists (science can be a very political field also so we need to be careful here), artists, all humans… none of us know it all. That is one more reason why we need to look deeper on how our society is embracing trust and the good old ethics.

This pandemic is showing the worst of our social, political and scientific issues. It can be a great opportunity to adjust the course of our path or to segregate us even more.

Again, articles sharing the facts are needed and the content is not in question but have you read faux articles? The rhetorics are presented as facts. How can one distinguish? How can one trust?

We all have family and friends who subscribe to the faux “side”. And we are all losers in a time where the winners are big corporations (also found in science, arts, education…). Through their broken political systems, US and Brazil are potentializing the lost of trust. Just sharing the facts is not helping amend the truth gap. For every fact we are finding, a counter-fact surfaces. It’s crazy but it is what is happening. What can we do to not perpetuate this behavior?

What other tools can we use to communicate the absurdity of the moment we are in? It’s mindblowing that people with guns are threatening nurses and doctors when they are the ones saving our lives but the media reporting it over and over again with different spins makes it acceptable for viewing, even if it is to share the disgust with it.

We have seen this blame game in the media before. A few years ago the target were law enforcement, not the system of laws that empower them and segregate us. During McCarthyism artists and educators fighting for social justice and equality were targeted as traitors. But what can we expect from a society that repels expressions of love yet openly embraces violence?

How to break this cycle of distrust?

No media? Local actions?

Do we have to suffer more pain from loosing loved ones, our incomes and homes to start acknowledging that we only have each other to trust on?

The privilege of being in the comfort of my spacious and well located home almost makes me forget the light gray day feeling, yet the uncertainties of the now are too uncomfortable and create a much stronger focal point.

Will any of my loved ones be sick? Will they be destined to leave the planet alone without proper goodbyes. Will I leave the planet alone? Will we have jobs? Will we be able to pay for food, housing, or health? What will the future be?

Earth’s melancholic light gray day reminds me that my uncertainties are already the reality for many in my town, in my county, in my state, in my regional area, in my country, in countries all over the planet.

What are the lessons that this little bug that hacks our bodies can teach us? Certainly in science: biomedical, statistical, financial, social and political studies are already connecting past present and future to draw tangible outcomes. But what about for us humans in an individual level? What are the lessons? Or yet, are we willing to respect COVID-19’s imposed reset and take the time to learn the lessons being taught?

It’s clear that this health hack is highlighting all the ills of western society (the only one I can speak of). The same way the virus is hacking human cells triggering an immune response and consequently a battle that disrupts and potentially fails one’s respiratory system it is also hacking humans to fight with each other aggravating all the ills of this country. Why aren’t the the corporations and the rich (financially and medically) bailing out the small business and workers who are out of jobs? Why are the rich profiting when many have to choose between eating, or getting and making others sick? Why are our leaders choosing to treat the social impact of the virus using political tools that only reinforce the ills that are making our society even sicker?

COVID-19 healing can be long, painful and lonely, and it is naive to think that any social healing would be fast, painless or pleasant. What are the lessons that we are willing to learn to live in a more healthy: just and harmonious life? Can we learn to brighten the day’s hue for everyone in the plane? We my not be here to tell.