Health hindering lockdowns are by no means fun.
The routine COVID-19 “stay home” decrees were agreeably necessary when little was known about the virus.
Nineteen months on, government decrees are less about preserving health, and more about government’s serving themselves.
There’s little doubt that keeping people scared, helps an increasingly militant bureaucracy keep emergency powers firmly in their hands.
It’s with this in mind that I’m reluctant to give out ideas for how to make lockdowns fun.
Such a venture might encourage an overbearing bureaucracy to continue using them.
Worse yet, any positives could be read as a green light from me suggesting I support further livelihood killing policy monstrosities.
I’m a reluctant “happy camper”.
No sane citizen is wearing a smile on their face as they welcome more of the “we’re all in this together”, but call the police on your neighbour dissonance.
No sane person is smiling as they’re told to make sacrifices from a group of people who aren’t financially affected by their own diktats.
That’s the caveat.
Here’s the point.
I’m a firm believer in doing what you can with what you’ve got.
Growing up in a housing commission, welfare-dependent house – that I can loosely call a home – ingenuity was more a stranger than entitlement and envy.
An early lesson I learned once moving on from that context is that those whom I once saw as rich, were quite often poor.
Though poor, they weren’t government-dependent.
They were more self-sufficient.
They weren’t plugged into the matrix the way I was raised to be.
The difference between my upbringing and those embracing the Australian dream wasn’t money, it was faith, will, and determination, to do what they could with what they had.
For example, with very little money, my in-laws turned a small two-bedroom house into a two-story home. They didn’t do this by winning the lottery or through a government grant.
They did it with grit, grace, faith, elbow grease, and their sweat drawn out by the work of their own hands.
In sum, it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with what you’ve got, that counts.
As a Christian, on a grass-roots, bare-bones level, that means I choose to live out Jesus Christ’s victory on the cross.
Lockdowns may create victims by pinning people to the couch. They don’t have to keep people there.
In response to news of extended lockdowns in my state I encouraged people with five ways to passively resist the mind-killing, soul-destroying rules by decree:
- Don’t let the government’s illogical, health deteriorating public health orders slowly kill you.
- Stay fit. Physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.
- Find a routine that works well for you. Keep to it.
- Don’t allow yourself to be bullied into living in fear.
- You may have to live in a prison, you don’t have to let that prison live in you.
Lockdowns may be government beating down on us, but we don’t have to let lockdowns beat us.
Do what you can, with what you’ve got.
- Glamp (camp) in the backyard.
- Two-days-tech-free challenge.
- Start a family wood working project:
- Learn to cook using cast iron pots over a brazier.
- Walking Taco (tried it – loved it).
- Aussie Damper.
- Campfire Philly cheesesteak.
- Get Christmassy around the fire.
- Make an early start on Christmas cards.
- Start Christmas wish lists.
- Design Christmas decorations – reward the family with a Winter themed, Christmas movie marathon.
- Jump in on some video games – see my D4K piece on Bond-building Couch Co-op Video Games
Living within the limits of lockdowns, without surrendering our souls to them, is achievable.
We’re only limited by a lack of will, faith, determination, and effort.
This in no way legitimises the whip-cracking, back-breaking bureaucratic whims lorded over us.
COVID culture is no friend to life, light, and liberty.
By living well, within the limits, we’re simply refusing to die by them.
First published on Dads 4 Kids 28th August 2021. Republished here with permission.