Do You Want A Scab Or A Scar?

• Blog author, Cynthia Ross Tustin.
• Avid Retirement Explorer; and searching for the bright spots in everyday life!
• Healing COVID fatigue, do you want to be left with a scab or a scar?
• Posted Monday, January 31st, 2022
• Innisfil, Ontario
• Shout out to Feedspot for naming me #73 on their 2022 Top 100 Retirement Blogs and Websites

For those of you who read my post yesterday, Canada’s Truck Convoy and the Value of Homemade Chicken Soup, and liked it, thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to comment. And for those of you who did not like it, I’m equally grateful. One thing is certain. COVID fatigue is real. And quite frankly, it is a bigger problem for our nation than the actual virus. I am not alone in wondering if the cure is not now worse than the pandemic. Jordan Peterson’s open letter to The National Post back on January 10^th said something similar about how the restrictions are affecting our institutions.

We live in a country blessed with freedoms that people have fought and died for. Who does not love our Charter of Freedoms?! The true test of that Charter is not supporting it on any given day. It is supporting it when the assembly of others inconveniences us. Or when they are shouting a message that is abhorrent to our own beliefs.

My post was not about if they were right or wrong in their protest beliefs. It was simply about why people protest. And if we understood what motivates a protest, look for a way to find something (anything) positive. Some did. Others did not. No problem!

But know this, there are seven reasons that motivate people to protest. And they have nothing to do with the “rightness” or the “wrongness” of their cause. According to social scientists, a lack of trust in the government or in a specific authority is a leading motivator. If you feel you’re being lied to or taken advantage of, this will lead to panic and anger. And shared grievances. No one likes feeling vulnerable and helpless. A group of like-minded people who find themselves with these shared emotions unite quickly. Grievances are routinely a strong motivating factor for mobilization.

I can see COVID fatigue all over this. Can’t you? Demonstrators didn’t protest all the restrictions two weeks into the pandemic. This soup pot has been boiling for two years. It takes a lot to get Canadians to protest at any time; let alone in January when it’s -20°c.

Have bad actors with false flags inserted themselves into this protest? You betcha. Is every protestor a swastika-waving, lawn-defecating, memorial vandal? Certainly not. That’s like saying everyone who didn’t protest believes and supports every solitary, single thing that the government has said and done.

When the pandemic ends, and it will, what are we going to be left with? The problem isn’t the extreme right or the extreme left, they’re always angry. The problem is a growing vexed and intolerant middle. The entire country is shaking to the foundation. Emotionally and institutionally. I can’t remember a time when there was this much mistrust and intolerance.

I just thought yesterday’s nice, warm bowl of chicken soup analogy might make us pause for a moment and consider the wounded feelings of those on a different side. A side with beliefs other than our own. There is an expression that my grandfather used to use. Do you want a scab or a scar? A scab never really heals, it gets picked at and festers. A scar might look ugly and represent something nasty, but it’s healed and you can get on with it.

When COVID and its fatigue are over, do you want a scab or a scar?

Cheers,

Cynthia

I acknowledge that the land on which I live is the traditional territory of the Wendake-ionwl,  Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ , Mississauga, and Haudenosaunee peoples