As I watched JB Pritzker’s address to the state of Illinois yesterday, in particular the speech by medical expert Dr. Emily Landon, it became clear to me exactly how the state government views my life.
In essence, it views my life essentially as a binary choice – I am alive or I am dead. But that is not how I view my life. My life is not binary.
It’s Charts and Numbers
Dr. Landon measures the situation by who lived and who died. Does she offer any measurement of the quality of these lives? No. Does she offer any measurement of the impact on individuals pursuing their passions, their interests, and their own spiritual values? No she does not.
To her, it is a matter of being alive or dead. The choice is binary – 1 or 0. I love computers, and I love software, so I love binary things – but my life is not binary. The choice is not between being alive or being dead.
What is the Cost?
What is the cost of a government mandated lock down to the business owners who have poured years of passion, energy, dedication, and life into a dream, only to have that dream ripped away in the economic aftermath of absurd abuse of power? How many years are taken off their lives? How much are their qualities of life diminished?
What is the cost to the employees of that business, that pursue their passions, that love their work, that are excited and motivated to bring about the business’s mission? What is the psychological cost to them when they wake up after this crisis and have no job to return to?
What is the cost to the customers of that business, the customers that love the goods or service they receive from it? What is the effect on their lives when all that’s left is a empty husk of a building, a sign hung announcing it’s out of business, or a 404 error when navigating to the company’s site?
Can anyone put this cost on a chart?
Be Dead, be Alive, or Live
The choice isn’t between being dead or being alive. That is the binary choice presented by Dr. Landon, but I see it differently.
The options are to be dead, to be alive, or to live.
Live is a verb. It implies action. It is not some static state. To live means to pursue of course of action – action directed in the pursuit of personal spiritual values.
The only problem with this? There’s no chart and there are no numbers to measure how much some one is living. You can’t put it up on a chart. You can aggregate the cost to the individuals of these government shutdowns and put it up against ‘flattening’ the curve.
Perhaps this is why Dr. Landon acts as though this cost either doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist. Perhaps, she is unconcerned with this sacrifice because there is no way to measure it. Perhaps, she thinks she has the right to advise the governor to trample on individual rights because it doesn’t matter to her.
Well, it matters to me.
Ryan Sawatzky 