Photography and a Turning Point

by Skip Cohen

​I hit a turning point this week on several levels, and I'm hoping what pushed me over the "top" helps many of you as well. 

A few minutes ago, I read a post on Facebook by a photographer who described her level of depression:
 
...a lot of it, I think, is due to stress and anxiety over the current pandemic and how it's completely killed business and changed everything. I can't find motivation to even edit.

This has been a rollercoaster of emotion for all of us. For me, I cycle through optimism, anxiety, depression, frustration, sadness...and then repeat the process. You name it, I've felt it. Some of this is a guy thing - It's my job to watch out for Sheila, our home, the pups, my business, etc. But, I'm defending us against a burglar I can't see who's stealing joy and leaving behind a truckload of stress and fear over and again.

Not that I'm entirely home free and back to my optimistic self, but I did turn an important corner this past week and here's what helped me through it:

• We stopped watching the news. We're down to one night a week for an update. One of my best buddies sent made this statement: "I know it's hard to believe that ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and other news outlets would lie and mislead the public. But, unfortunately - they are lying to the public. Some of them seriously hate America! Remember that Math is a bad man. Numbers don't lie unless you fudge the numbers to support your theory or claim. Some of the first models said there would be millions of deaths. Then it was 500k, then 200k, and so on... now the estimate is probably between 50-75K. That is probably the average deaths due to flu every year. They created hysteria and now have to cover for their early predictive models." 
• I did a little research on the flu in past years. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not minimizing the seriousness of COVID-19, but in the flu season of 2017-2018, an estimated 61,000 people died in the US from complications resulting from the flu. And we lost over 34,000 for the same reason the following year. And yes, my sources are through Google, CDC statistics, etc. I'm just tired of the media and the spin they've put on this.
• Worried about our retirement savings, I called my guy at the bank. I never saved like I should have when I was younger, but still, I had watched our little nest egg drop by 30% when the market crashed. His comments, "There have been six virus panics to hit the stock market since 2003. Each time the market dropped by approximately 13%. This time it was hirer because of Russia and Saudi with oil issues. What you're seeing is fear trading NOT math trading. And in an interview with the executives of 100 of the top 500 companies in the US, they all predict they'll be up and running again over the next 90 days and at 90% production within 30 days after that."
• I read some of the comments people made about Ellen Degeneres after she compared being quarantined to being in jail. People jumped all over her because she's living in her large house with her wife, dogs, and hardly suffering the way, so many other people are. But here's what aggravated me the most - it was a simple comment on being shut off from her friends and freedom to go out. But social media has given everybody an opportunity to criticize. Everyone seems to forget the millions of dollars every year she gives back to people. We miss her regular show, because we'd record it and make it the last thing we watched before going to be bed. "Why?" Because it was always so uplifting, and it got us away from the BS of politics, fake news, and let us go to sleep smiling.
• Last but not least, one buddy, Brent Watkins put together QuaranCon, and another, Rich Harrington at Photofocus, put together the Artist's Notebook. I had two presentations to do this week. Talking with Brent about how to keep in touch with your clients while hunkered down was the first. Then two days later came a one-hour presentation with Levi Sim on making your blog more effective. Both programs were about keeping the "home fires" burning at a time when the world has entirely run amuck!

Look, COVID-19 is no joke, but its impact on America shouldn't have resulted in so many horrible spin-offs. Seventeen million people have lost their jobs, and Congress is still arguing over stimulus programs. How much faster do you think they would have moved if their salaries had been cut and most of them were furloughed?

And that brings me full circle. I'm out of my funk. Sheila and I are following every safety precaution recommended. We wear masks when we have to go out. We maintain social distancing. I wash my hands after a simple walk to the mailbox. We're doing everything we need to do to stay safe. But, if I let the pandemic shut me down completely, then all the doom and gloomers on the misery ship win! That cruise line is far worse shape than anything the Diamond Princess faced, which is where the shock of so much of this started. And by the way:

"It had nearly 4,000 people on board—many of them in risk groups. (Somebody who used to perform aboard cruise ships quipped that passengers are mostly "the newlywed and the nearly dead" ;)) You'd expect these packed together on a ship in quarantine to be all infecting each others. And yet… 4,061 passengers and crew were examined, on board what effectively became an unintentional virus incubator. Only 712 contracted the virus (about 17.5%), of which 334 asymptomatic (8.2% of the total), leaving 378 (9.3% of the total) ill. Only 7 people died (1.85% of those ill, or 0.17% of all passengers and crew examined), all of them age 70 or older. (Remember, the passenger population is skewed toward the elderly.)" Here's the link to the article.
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I've got my focus on getting our joy back, and while I might slip now and then, I'm determined to make it just a speed bump and not shut down the whole highway!

As sappy as this sounds, together we can all get through this!