squidd
Chieftain
SARS: In Perspective
There was an earlier post in this forum skewed towards whether SARS has a fatality rate proportional to the worldwide panic that it has caused. I truly find this debate relevant. However, I will refrain from taking either side of the discussion because I hope to share a different perspective to this disease.
I live in the Philippines, in the heart of Southeast Asia, in the heart of the outbreak. Two weeks ago, I went down with a terrible flu. Thankfully, my longevity alone proves that it was not the dreaded disease.
Truth to tell, I never even once seriously considered that my flu was it. However, a couple of days in bed and away from work gave my time to wander and probe the possibilities and ramifications if this, indeed, was it.
Weak and ailing I lay in my room thinking about the way I have lived my life. I will not venture to share the details of this reflection as this surely will be of no interest to distant third parties. Suffice to say that I ran through an inventory of the things I have done, the things I shouldnt have done, and the things that I still wish to do. The rights. The wrongs. And the I-should-haves.
In this sense, SARS, for me, transcends the life-threatening symptoms caused by the corona virus. It serves as paradigm through which an individual can view life in a new perspective all together. What is saddening about this realization is that people like me, constantly caught up in the nip-and-tuck pace of corporate life, need the specter of death, whether real or imagined, to be force into introspection.
I used to have a life. My work took it away. But day-by-day beginning last week, I have tried to reclaim it. Earning a living is senseless unless I have a reason for living in the first place. This, among other realizations, are very real to me. One that will survive long after medical science has answered conclusively whether the SARS scare is, in fact, real or imagined.
--squidd--
There was an earlier post in this forum skewed towards whether SARS has a fatality rate proportional to the worldwide panic that it has caused. I truly find this debate relevant. However, I will refrain from taking either side of the discussion because I hope to share a different perspective to this disease.
I live in the Philippines, in the heart of Southeast Asia, in the heart of the outbreak. Two weeks ago, I went down with a terrible flu. Thankfully, my longevity alone proves that it was not the dreaded disease.
Truth to tell, I never even once seriously considered that my flu was it. However, a couple of days in bed and away from work gave my time to wander and probe the possibilities and ramifications if this, indeed, was it.
Weak and ailing I lay in my room thinking about the way I have lived my life. I will not venture to share the details of this reflection as this surely will be of no interest to distant third parties. Suffice to say that I ran through an inventory of the things I have done, the things I shouldnt have done, and the things that I still wish to do. The rights. The wrongs. And the I-should-haves.
In this sense, SARS, for me, transcends the life-threatening symptoms caused by the corona virus. It serves as paradigm through which an individual can view life in a new perspective all together. What is saddening about this realization is that people like me, constantly caught up in the nip-and-tuck pace of corporate life, need the specter of death, whether real or imagined, to be force into introspection.
I used to have a life. My work took it away. But day-by-day beginning last week, I have tried to reclaim it. Earning a living is senseless unless I have a reason for living in the first place. This, among other realizations, are very real to me. One that will survive long after medical science has answered conclusively whether the SARS scare is, in fact, real or imagined.
--squidd--
unlike SARS, it will be the selection board at UBC who will be the ultimate judge of that. 
