What is it by which you measure success? Do you desire money, to build a large home and fill it with things? A healthy young body blessed with virility and unburdened by illness? A family, or for your own family to grow up and realize their hopes and dreams? To conquer enemies and triumph in the current political climate? Simply to stay alive? Or for peace to prevail, for coronavirus to go away, the government to leave you alone? To return to normal life?

Dead are many who invoked God as a defense against the virus, while others yet live who carelessly ignore precautions and refuse even the simplest of mitigation measures. A few days ago a leader of the Mormon church tried yet again to vilify the LGBTQI+ community in another of a long history of fueling resentment and animosity toward those who are different that they may wield power and influence. My entire life has been defined by the rejection of my family, the loss of bonds, and the isolation of being different. The pandemic has eviscerated my income and made the future appear despairingly bleak. Yet, I find myself seated in peace, and joy, and happiness such as I have never known, and have more friends in my life than has even been truer, and done things to help others, to give salve to pain and to lend hope for the lost, hurting, and despondent.

There are times when we as humanity lose our collective minds and forget what life is really about. Seemingly surrounded on all sides by chaos, animosity, resentment, subterfuge, or betrayal our vision narrows as apparent threats close in around us. Some seek to adapt to this chaos by invoking God or denial, even though God does not work in such ways and denial can further imperil our fate. Survival instincts kick in and we forget our compassion, our intelligence, and even our community as desperation for self-preservation overtakes all higher emotions and intellect.

Death does not make life tragic. It is a natural part of living—the end of it. And whether it comes as a young person with our entire life ahead of us or at the very end when we have lived only ever in selfishness and materialism, there is a greatness to the Universe and our very existence in it which is not something we can control, no matter how much we wish do to so, no matter how much effort we apply. The desire to subvert fate by indulging in excessive exercise, dieting, manipulating other people, entertaining conspiracy theories or electing merciless despots has never succeeded in prolonging the timeline of any human being in history, and it will never do that, not for you, not for your loved ones, and not for the institutions we hold up for this purpose.

Fear of death, of loss, of powerlessness is an adaptive survival behavior we as humans have inherited from our ancestors as a way to help promote the success of our species. If we were not aware of potential threats to our individual person, whether it be a disease, nefarious intentions of other human beings, natural disaster, or lack of preparedness we would not be a species on this earth. All that we are, from our higher emotions and natures to those basest of instincts for competition and selfish exploitation of others is part of our biology as a human being, the entire arsenal of human traits which we have acquired over countless generations, which delude us into believing we have any control over things like fate.

What most people do not realize is that our nature as a human being is not necessarily for our own, individual wellbeing. The survival of ourselves as a species is the paramount objective of human nature, and as such the individual is often burdened with characteristics which sacrifice them for the benefit of the whole. If you in fact read this and think I mean the old, the feeble, the infirm, the powerless and others who have died by the virus, cancer, violence, exploitation, or lack of resources, you in fact are the one who is being sacrificed by nature, not the fatalities, because you will never know the joys, the peace of mind, and the love which comes to humans who do not suffer from paranoia, suspicion, bigotry, hatred, and fear. Fear drives humans to sacrifice themselves, to do things which are unspeakable, to turn on family members, to isolate, to gossip, to steal, to hoard, to support murderers and opportunists, to persecute those who are different. Nature, and God, do not care what you want, what you think, what are your beliefs. The last person God will save are those who invoke him as an excuse for their stupidity. We often think is it those who die who are not saved, while their murderers live in a hell of their own making, being so depraved as to take the very life of another person. Which of them is truly lost?

God is the immutable nature of the Universe, and when you know God you know that it matters not what happens around you, or to you. It only matters what we choose to do with our own free will. Is this to indulge fear because it is a potent drug which gets your adrenaline pumping and gives some excitement to your boring, little life? Is it because the collective group of like-minded individuals acting in agreement helps you feel safe against the threat of the unknown whether or not they are correct? Or is it to give up your own comfort to those who need it? To promote goodness? To give aid to those who are suffering?

No, vaccines are not perfect. Neither are masks. I use a mask, but I have not been vaccinated because I don’t like the mercury in the vaccine, which can stay in the brain for several years, because I have had a history of cancer and other devastating metabolic illnesses and would rather not tax my own health with this right now, but I am also practicing strict social distancing, wearing a mask whenever I am around other people, because viruses are transmitted through respiratory particles and any fucking idiot can see that a mask reduces the chances of transmitting or receiving those particles. Fear mongers talk about inflammation from vaccines as if the immune system does not work entirely on principles of inflammation, but you are fucking stupid and know nothing about biology so you believe them because they play to your fears, to the unknown, using your own ignorance and biases against you. I am doing everything I can to protect my own health and that of others while also accommodating my own concerns. The choice is not defiance or compliance. The choice is whether you will think of others while also thinking of yourself, or only that of yourself.

Times like this in which we find ourselves are meant to subject humanity to reality, the reality that so many of us wish to deny—that we have no control over our lives, over our fate. In the end, we all die. But this is not something of which to be afraid. Death is the next step in our existence, and we are as powerless over it as we were of coming into this world in the first place. There is an order and a purpose to everything that is not our responsibility to bear. Taking responsibility for such impossible things will end up making you do stupid shit like refusing vaccines or masks while going about in the world as if there are no consequences to your actions. The world will remind you that you are wrong.

Find joy in the immutable nature of reality. God is in charge. We can let God be in control of things, and give up the burden of fate. Even when everything is going wrong, even when we make mistakes, there is still so much that is going right. Today I had porridge for breakfast sweetened with real brown sugar, with coffee and strawberries, an amazing salad for lunch and roast chicken for dinner, and played some video games and spoke on the phone with my lovely sister while the sun shone brightly and the promise of life-giving rain on the forecast and ended the day watching an animated Superman film on a streaming service on the internet which didn’t even exist when I was born, and then wrote an article I can push to several thousand people in a matter of moments. If I had known that fate was not up to me when I was a young man I might not have taken a knife to my wrist. I would have been able to see the joy which existed all around me. My mind was clouded by poor health and the sadness of suffering at the hands of my family, the religion of my parents, and the loneliness I thought defined me. If you are reading this you have the same freedom to discover true joy and happiness, which is not reliant on things going well (cause they never really do).

Take care of your health, stop giving your power to conspiracy theorists and manipulative, compassionless, and dogmatic opportunists. Letting them exploit your fear will, in the long term, cost you more than your life. It will cost your humanity.