024B0: Open-Minded Survival


Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 164

This long into lockdown, it feels everyone and their dog is hustling. With so many people no longer able to work as normal, they've had to resort to different alternate revenue streams. There's a lot of multi-level marketing going on, it seems, as I've had more than a few contacts message me with this or that product to boost immunity or somehow compliment my keto efforts. It's hard to say no to people since you know they're struggling. And as much as you want to reward their efforts to still make a living, some of these products are highly questionable, to say the least. But we do our part to help folks when we can, provided we're actually close enough to be considered friends and the product they're offering isn't too crazy. 

On a related note, one of the weird hallmarks of this quarantine period is what is essentially our charity efforts for the home service massage therapists we used to hire. Each of us is taking care of one of our longer-term therapists with occasional donations that we politely label as loans on YNAB, but we know in reality they're really charity. It's not entirely safe to engage massage therapists given the highly vulnerable state you can be during a session and that leaves them with no real means of income beyond odd jobs that they're able to tackle in their areas. And these are people we've been hiring on and off for years, so they are friends to a degree. 

A lot of this quarantine period is about doing what we can to help one another when needed and when possible, The national government has made it clear that it doesn't have the resources to fully support everyone who needs support through these lockdowns and so they've pushed a lot of the burden to the local government units, to the private sector and pretty much to the individual to find ways to survive. And while I wish the government would pick up the slack and get more done, it is unlikely anything is going to change soon, so best to do our part when we can. 

Survive today. Live long enough to see tomorrow. 

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