I’m in a café writing this post when I spot a coin on the floor.
No one’s picking it up—in fact they’re sidestepping it—because of course it’s infected with you-know-what.
I’m reminded of a scene in the 1980 movie, Caddyshack.
Bill Murray plays the half-wit-less greenskeeper at a posh country club. When a rowdy pool party panics at the sight of a floating turd, Murray is dispatched to drain and scrub the pool.
The club’s posh matriarch watches from above as Murray locates the dreaded object—picks it up—sniffs it—and says, “It’s no big deal.”
She faints as he—takes a bite.
You see, it turns out to be a Baby Ruth chocolate bar.
It’s no big deal.
I’ve been taste-testing the Covid stats for months.
The numbers are easy to access and even simpler to add up. The totals tell us that we should be having a more intelligent conversation about the real risks of dying of this bug.
For example:
Covid is far down the list of leading causes of death. Here in British Columbia, we’ll likely have more homicides this year than Covid deaths.
People younger than 60 are 400 x more likely to kill themselves than perish from the pandemic.
Alas, it takes an eccentric like Bill Murray to discover the truth for himself — that compared to many hazards we live with, “It’s no big deal.”
(Murders and suicides, however, are tragic.)
Our favourite fictional heroes are all about discovering the truth for themselves. Fiction thrives on characters who stray from the herd. Black sheep like Thelma & Louise and Keanu Reeves in Matrix. And Rocky.
Rocky Balboa takes a bite out of the lie that’s been living inside him his whole life. Seeing the truth, he is able to leave crippling delusions behind. That’s freedom, that’s the gold that lies at the heart of many stories.
Available only to black sheep.
So, what is a black sheep?
“I distrust conformity and orthodoxy,” says Stephen Fry (Brit writer/actor), in wrapping up a debate on political correctness.
“Progress is not achieved by preachers and guardians of morality—but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics.”
That’s a black sheep.
And black sheep matter more than ever these days, in my opinion.
With technocrats dictating lockdown policy to our politicians, the battle against the pandemic more resembles a war against our society. The dystopian author, George Orwell, cautioned against authorities removing our freedoms.
In 1936, Orwell signed up to fight Fascism in Spain. In his memoir, Homage to Catalonia, he writes:
“The fact is that every war suffers a kind of progressive degradation with every month that it continues—because such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not compatible with military efficiency.”
Black sheep are compelled to speak up against that erosion of truth and liberty.
In Orwell’s 1984, the state has restored happiness to people by removing freedom. We find the same sentiment in George Lucas’ THX 1138. Likewise, Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, and in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s WE.
The heroes of those stories risk death to escape their safe prisons. Black sheep won’t be led like lambs to the slaughter.
Black Sheep Matter
Black sheep have always been our explorers and adventurers. They’re our dreamers and rebels, our heretics and our true artists.
Because they’re sceptics, black sheep are forced to be scientists testing the official narratives about almost everything. These days, they question the new coronavirus.
Something’s happening out there—but what, exactly? Science will take years to report on the truth of it all. In the meantime, black sheep will question everything they see on television. They’ll QUIT watching television, it’s spreading coronavirus! They’ll check the data to see for themselves what is worth fearing, and what is “no big deal.”
For instance, ten people in BC die of acute respiratory diseases on any given day. Whereas Covid has claimed, on average, one per day.
Bill Murray sniffs that and says, “No big deal.”
“Crazy”
Crazy is the working title of my latest work-in-progress. It’s a father-son road story chock full of politically incorrect life lessons. On the journey, the father retells the Biblical story of the shepherd abandoning the flock to chase after the lost sheep. In Dad’s version, the sheep’s not happy he’s been found.
“I’m not lost, boss,” the sheep says. “I escaped.”
The moral of the story is: What good is a life if we don’t use it to change what’s wrong with it?
The first order of business is—discover the truth of it.
Take a bite.
