The Conspiracy People

It was almost 2AM when I got a text from a relative. My heart sank. When you're in NYC and your phone buzzes at an ungodly hour, your first thought is, Covid took someone. And I guess, in a way, it did. There on my phone was a youtube video, words splashed across the screen, debunking the lies of Covid-19. As always, it was information not intended for the public, a secret so damning that it must be shared with manic urgency to sound the alarm for the nation, nay, the entire world, to awaken from their hypnotized delusion.

"It's almost 2AM, " I wrote. "Dude, you woke me up."

In the morning, I did my own research using, no doubt, the same resources my relative did. Google, youtube, wikipedia. And in 10 minutes, everything on the video debunking the report of the scientific community, was debunked. I didn't bother responding. He would no doubt do his own research and debunk my debunking and we would go in circles until neither one of us would know what the word debunk actually means.

So, what's with these conspiracy theorists? Most importantly, how did half of my FB timeline get dominated lately by these people?

I wonder between narcissism (the only ones all knowing of the truth) and paranoid personality disorder (the illuminati is lurking in the shadows). Whatever it is, it must be pathological. How could one be so convinced that they have the SECRET TRUTH to the world's apparent lies with no other mode to access such vital information than through google search and links leading to multiple links perpetrated by other conspiracy theorists? They have access to the actual truth, without needing to be part of the CIA or the FBI, while the common man (I am the common man) walk in this sheep herd, bleating. I'll never forget when multiple people were killed at Pulse, the gay night club in Florida, in 2016 and Conspiracy Theorists claimed that never happened. It was staged somehow. I happened to know someone who lost a couple of friends in that shooting and I wondered if he knew people claimed that the heinous crime never happened. The very dismissal of such deaths, along with the accusation that this carnage was a lie, was to me, just as heinous as the crime itself.

Thankfully, 99% of the people I know do not have this same kind of pathology but...COVID came. This pandemic made inmates out of everyone and I don't know if we overdid the hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes and perhaps inhaled too much disinfectants, but one by one, the most stable people I knew, the ones I respected in some way, began sharing conspiracy videos with me. They showed up in my instagram, on my messenger, and yes, on my text at 2AM.

Normally sane, stable, intelligent people asked me to pray for safety as alas, they have found the anti-Christ and his name is...Bill Gates. And his pale apocalyptic horse is named, 5G.

Like the toilet paper people, this was a bit of a phenomenon to me. What in the world was going on? Sharing the same INTJ personality as Bill Gates, I have been a long time fan. I know what it's like to scan over a situation and see the solution to problems, to be driven by the desire to fix, to accomplish more, to absolutely obsess over a subject until I know every information to its last detail, all for the sake of making an incredible difference, and yet feeling like you aren't ever really doing enough. You are burdened by the constant thought that your life must have meaning--it must have value; And that value comes by impacting your world. The thing that obviously sets me apart from Bill, aside from the categorical disparity in brilliance, is that he's a multi-billionaire while I worry about next month's tuition.

And then, in a sad turn of events, the good Brooklyn-native, respected and trusted Dr. Fauchi turned into the doubted physician, as my sane friends (pre-pandemic) devoured videos made by doctors who were outcasts of the scientific community.

Indeed, it is the apocalypse.

During one of those mornings while I was in deep thought about the birth of new conspiracy theorists everywhere, my husband said, "Do you see what's happening to kids now? This virus seems to have mutated."

"I'm sure China knew that when they created it in the lab," I retorted. And then I gasped.

I, too, believed in a conspiracy! Sure, not the Bill Gates, Fauchi, 5G Towers, but my own belief not shared by the scientific community. I didn't go as far as believing that China released the virus intentionally as to declare war through bio-weapon to the rest of the world, but I thought...hmm, it was accidentally released. And now that accident has brought the world down to its knees.

So, like a good old behavior analyst, I had to stop and analyze not the behavioral response of all the newly converted conspiracy theorists, but me. I had to analyze me. Why wouldn't I believe that the virus came from a cute, giggling Chinese girl eating an unassuming dead bat on youtube? What was my resistance to that?

Fear.

My refusal to believe that this virus is not man made is imbedded in fear. At-least for me. To think that eating a bat can result in releasing a virus so vicious it leaves the vulnerable gasping for air and the world's economy collapsing under its weight is too overwhelming. It makes man unaware, with no semblance of control, frighteningly powerless and helpless.

But if it was made in a lab, then we created it. We knew its potency, we were the ones in control...until we were not. And so, in the future, we can ensure there's no repetition of this devastation by making sure it's not released, making sure there are no accidents, or better yet, just shutting down such labs.

But if it came from some random girl choosing to eat a bat instead of a sandwich, who's to say someone won't eat a scorpion that won't release bacteria that disintegrates our brains, or eat a spider monkey that won't release yet another virus with a much higher fatality rate?

If Bill Gates created this, if Fauchi is providing us with lies for money, then it still comes from human beings. Sinister, power hungry human beings, but human beings nonetheless. And humans we know. Bill we know, Fauchi we know. Heck, 5G Towers we know. If these world dominators come, we can strap on our bullet proof vests (don't have one), arm ourselves (don't own a weapon) and protect our families like we've seen in 20 Will Smith movies. But a virus that brilliant scientists have no control of and know very little about without the sinister manipulation of mankind? A potentially mutating virus where that nagging itch on your left ankle could be one of its newest symptoms and until the vaccine is made available, it may mutate to 50% fatality rate? What are we supposed to do with that? And the answer from the scientific community who has pledged to protect our health is, "We just don't know and we can't predict and yes, a much more devastating second wave may come and hmmm, here comes the latest 9th organ it appears to destroy..." How are we supposed to process all of that? How can we be expected to remain imprisoned in our homes, watch our resources deplete everyday, wonder if that tickle in our throat is the beginning of the end, each and every time it happens?

It's not pathological to say this was planned, or falsely presented, or doctored up in a lab and accidentally released. It's not pathological, it's desperate. We desperately want to believe the conspiracies.

Because the truth, if it IS the truth, is much too overwhelming to accept.