Letters for Monday, May 4, 2020

Human race is controlled by fear

I see Kaua‘i as the way-shower (for the rest of the world). How’s our perception? Looks as skewed as anywhere else so far.

A palpable fear is scaring my dear cat. He’s gone away to hide, as he doesn’t trust what people might do to him, and for good reason. I have not been able to shake the sadness.

May this letter jolt you awake.

Look deep. When you do you will see, dealing with a virus called corona, is just what’s happening on the surface. On a deeper level, it is a human race controlled by fear. In your depths, like the depths of the sea, you know this is true. It’s really a matter of dealing with fear and a very old belief.

A hundred and fifty years ago, a reality came into existence. It’s Pasteur’s germ theory. Ever since; yep, a germ or a virus cause disease. On his death bed, Pasteur (is said to have) confessed: “My theory’s not true but I helped the people of France when they desperately needed help. Good luck.” It became reality only because people everywhere believed it. They agreed.

His theory is one that would inevitably evoke fear and, even being a lie, it still appeals to you. Why? Because it takes you off the hook. You didn’t do it, the germ did. It fits with the ever-wishful, worn-out notion that what happens to you has nothing to do with you.

A virus is not alive, is not a living thing. It has no life or metabolism. Therefore, if it really is anything on its own, which I question, what can it possibly do? Nothing — not without you. You have to invite it over. (A virus is) pointless until a good host like you invites it in. Only then, but not necessarily, can it settle in to your easy chair of cells and do something. A virus cannot and does not arbitrarily float into your body to make you sick or dead. That’s ridiculous.

Reality is agreement. That’s all it is. The germ-theory fear is only conditioning you agreed with unawarely, absorbed growing up. It breeds in your mind and is anti-life, unlike instinctual fear, which is pro-life. You have two choices now: Fit in or live free.

Love works. Aloha is the presence of breath, which is spirit. Where is that breath of life now? Hard to tell with all the masks.

This is the direction the germ theory was headed. It’s reached the end of the line. You don’t sit on a bus that’s going nowhere. Time to get off the bus. No, you can’t get back on. It’s been discovered that the world is round.

A coronavirus vaccine? Please! What kind of vicious, lie-infected, flat joke of a world is that?

My cat knows. Coronavirus is something fishy, a red herring to be precise. Harris is love on four legs. He knows all you need is love.

Mahalo. Thank you.

Victoria Golden, Kapa‘a

Visitor hopes we all emerge as better people

Hello. I have been a visitor to your island since ‘95. In that time I have been a part of the problem: rental car and going to the beach.

In the years of my visiting I have supported the local agricultural economy, botanical and arboretum, and visited numerous farms that have taught me how to walk softly on your island.

The noni farm tour, and the taro/rice farm tour have taught me the most since the flood that wiped out access to the north end of the island. The folks who own, run and employ from the north end shared what they have seen since that catastrophic event, that nature has welcomed not having tourists trampling the beaches, and swimming with sunscreen on, just to label a few of the obvious crimes on nature that we unknowing tourists have committed.

I read The Garden Island newspaper every day, and want to be a contributor to helping the island to prosper. I hope that that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t visit the island that I most revere and respect. I visit all the Hawaiian Islands, but always come back to Kaua‘i every year, after visiting one of the other islands, to remind myself why I cherish being invited back.

These times are very difficult to understand, and to predict and or anticipate what will happen next is next to impossible. Living in Seattle, we are experiencing all of what you are, and hoping that those who we have elected are representing us with the best of intentions.

No one has all the right answers, so by working together, and respecting the difficulty in making unpopular policy, be it good or bad, none of us have any experience in this crisis.

Scientific research and medical research are definitely the leaders in providing as accurate information that is available on a daily basis. This changes daily. But to let political leaders sway us into believing that they know more than the professionals who have made a career of studying pandemics is ludicrous.

I hope that we all come out of this on the other end better people than we are now, and implement the changes to our quality of life and improvements in our local economies so that we all can earn a living wage to be able to afford to live in paradise.

Drew Cornish, Seattle