@Lookout a situation can happen if they personally experience an event. Not sure if it is related to the response seen with some herd animals not responding to predators killing another in their herd a few feet away and nonchalantly continuing to graze. The intensity of the COVID-19 infections varies dramatically across the country. Communicated with a client in New Jersey who works in longterm care facilities yesterday. He found it hard to comprehend our county only had 4 active cases and no deaths identified.

Dementia creates multiple losses. First you loose the shared memories with a person, then the personality that has been part of your life and then the person. Family members experience the first two losses at different times and can sometimes create conflict between family members. Hard to watch, harder to experience.

No wolves or bears close, not in their migratory paths. Cougars, foxes and coyotes come by occasionally. The most persistent attack on my animals health is parasites and no entertaining stories are created in the conflict.

Perhaps for COVID's reality to set in we need to know folks who have had it, and may have died. Taking abstractions and making them concrete experiences brings reality home IMO. I've had a couple of friends die over the last couple of months...both from long struggles with dementia. Boy, is that condition hard on families.

Hope all is well on your farm. No wolves here, but we have had bear pass through on occasion...and lots of coyote. The garden is doing well...planting mater, pepper, and eggplant starts this evening. Had "dogwood winter" this week, and still expect another cool spell in early May (blackberry winter). Temps ranging from 70's to lows near 50 are predicted next week with a couple of rains thrown in to boot, so I think it will be good timing.

Thanks for the info on change and the OT. Take care!

@ggersh toward local and state officials. Read in the local paper today a rally (protest) at city hall tonight. Underneath is a slow realization the bankers are not hurting as bad. The question is will the anger be directed to the small local branches and managers or the small number of elites who own and control the financial system and governments?

My mistake. I did not realize it was a comedy routine. The description on youtube.

Vic DiBitetto
Funny videos — try not to laugh, smile or grin while watching comedian Vic DiBitetto. Please share and don't forget to subscribe to my channel.
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The subject of the comedy routine was too close to the over the fence conversation with my neighbor yesterday. Worried about his children and grandchildren's future.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLcNStHTDjM]

@enhydra lutris In the book her "stages" were the descriptive organization of the conversations and observations she made over time with individuals who knew they were dying in the near future. It was not a research project or prescriptive pathway on how to experience death.

Somehow the words in the book took a life of their own. They became a dogma to minimize the freedom of how one can respond to changes and force behavior patterns in others. The interview is interesting and severely cropped. It appears an attempt try and fit Oprah and her audience's belief system of the importance of the 5 stages with a live interview of a woman who does not want to be categorized.

"Don't try to follow a textbook or have someone tell you what to do. Trust yourself, your own natural emotions.
Dr Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her last interview"

and very likely quite accurate too, unfortunately.

Since 1969 the path way many Americans use is the five DABDA stages (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) described by Dr Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying.

I have heard about those 5 stages way, way too often and with a certitude that that is, of course, how it works, and how it will go, from both observers and participants, and it has become, sadly, the prescribed ritual of how one should go through these things; "well, I'm here, so the next step is ..."

I never read the book so I cannot say, but, if that is other than an attempt at being descriptive, if it is, in fact, prescriptive, then it is, per se, an invention having no intrinsic merit. I suspect that its intent was descriptive, but there are pitfalls to that, because the progression has come to be seen as self-justifying and inevitable. "Oh, she's just in denial, that's a stage she has to go through in order to get over it, but it will pass". Swap in any other stage like "depression", or substitute "grieving" somewhere along in there.

You allude to these flaws when you say"

For me Acceptance became not a stage to achieve, rather letting go of Denial, Fear, Anger and Depression to let in rational thought.

Which is far better than the original, depending upon what is on the table or under consideration. A lot has to do, of course, with whether this is something happening to you, or to some other.

What I noted early on is that this is not an algorithm nor any kind of decision making process. There are no branch points. And what is that "bargaining", with whom? The medical delivery system? God? The Fates? Maybe that instead should be "figuring this shit out" and or "deciding how to handle this". It shouldn't and probably doesn't work that way. It doesn't, historically, for me. My stages are more like

Oh fuck! {plus damn that hurts, is it permanent/fixable, does it require (immediate) medical
attention, do I need an attorney or bail bondsman, etc.}
(optional is this real?)
(optional is this certain or written in stone in some fashion?)
Damn, you (should) know better than to do that, vow to try to remember
(can I make this go away?)
(can it be ameliorated)
What are the possible next steps (and their outcomes, or vice-versa as to order)
How feasible are they? {how about if I really, really muscle up}
What information is out there that might help me choose? How, where, when can I access it?
(Is there an app for this? )
{{At some point childhood learned behaviors momentarily kick in "bargaining" or "prayer", I guess, immediately cut off by the knowledge that all that is bullshit and you are on your own, if feasible, do some pranayama instead}}
Decide on needed immediate action and do it
Do any required research for further decisions
get on with it

In short, it's all problem solving unless it is one of those things that is totally and completely out of your control and ability to influence. If it is such a thing, then let it happen (If it starts to rain, let it) and consider if you wish to attempt to make it controllable in the future by working to devise and institute some sort of control process or mechanism.

Blame, fwiw, is assessment of responsibility, (see rain). If I have any degree of responsibility, then deal with that, and if I don't then invoke the correct decision matrix for that.