We are now more than a year into the Covid 19 pandemic, and it is  certain that there will be a third wave. The CDC, and Dr. Fauci, have  now stated that they are extremely concerned about the growing number of  cases, which, as I sit here writing, is now at 57,000 cases a day in  the last week. This is clear evidence for another surge of covid deaths,  but America, including about half of our elected officials have  declared the pandemic over. It may seem perplexing, I say may because it  seems to make sense to many people, that the woes of sadness and  boredom are outweighing the reality of illness and death, but that is  what it has come to in America. It becomes more and more clear all the  time that this is not a nation of people who care anything about health.  I knew this was a problem in the mental health field. Americans  commonly deny the existence of mental illness, treating therapy as some  sort of conspiracy to take away their right to be an asshole. But the  mental health pandemic has been largely ignored. As I write, it is  estimated that a third of people in the United States have mental  disorders that have not been diagnosed. You can almost understand the  ignorance when it comes to our mental health pandemic. Mental illness is  not easy to spot, and those who suffer from it rarely know they even   have such an illness. However, the avoidance, and denial of physical  illness is also common in American history. Various unproven alternative care "treatments" such as enemas, fasting,  water treatments, and beatings have been touted as the holy grail of  healing by opportunists, and utopians. But where do these supposed  hucksters come from? As the old adage goes, where there is demand, the  supplier will provide the goods. America may not be a Christian nation,  but it is a faith based nation. People desire to be right more than they  desire to be cured. Everywhere you go you hear people claiming to have  the correct worldview. But does medical science jive with their  particular flavor of truth? For years, we were told to treat people  kindly, and to accept them for who they are. What if who they are is a  person in despair who has given up on life completely, but is still able  to function in society? What if their life has been a horror show, a  complete nightmare that has resulted in nothing but pain, and misery?  What if they have not been successful like you have? What if they  sincerely tried to fit into the world as it is, but time and again were  told that there was simply no place for them? What if their entire  reason for existing has been called into question by various tragedies?  What if their loved ones mock and ignore them? What if they are stranger  everywhere they go? What if they have no place where they can just be  themselves? What if, everywhere they go, people are trying to change  them? This is what we have called despair. Despair is such a powerful  emotion, that it will make you completely irrational. It seems to me that is what is going on in the United States when it  comes to the various conspiracy theories online, and elsewhere. The  conspiracy theorist decides that they are the hero of their own tragic  tale, that it may very well be over for them, that all hope may be lost,  but at least they still have their own mind. They are still an  individual under this narrative. They are not being controlled by the  people who they feel have hurt them. Yet all too often I hear people saying we need to teach more, we need to talk more, we need more debates. What effect has that had? Why do we keep trying the same tactics over and over again even though we are getting nowhere?