Suffering for Dummies

One of the biggest problems first worlders face is our comfort. Hot showers, three squares, storage units — you know the script. We are very comfortable. For us, suffering is a kind of pathos, rarely a tragedy, almost comic in its triviality. Comics are having a problem these days, telling jokes, because the image of people dying alone, breathless, while potentially infecting others is not funny.

While way too many of us have died this terrible death, or had to work maskless near it, most of us have not. We remain adjacent. We remain on the edge of realization of these matters and wonder why we would…