Last Call before Quarantine

It is the 30th of March, in the Year of Our Lord 2020.  Governor Hogan of Maryland announced today that staying at home would now be mandated by law, except for essential errands, as of 2000 hours.

I suppose its telling that my first reaction was to immediately plan and carry out an errand run for non-essentials, including alcohol.  Telling also is that my first stop was at a grocery store, in which I decided to get Birch Beer instead of actual beer.  I still got the chewing gum I had planned to get, alongside dish detergent and fresh produce.  While I had stocked non-perishable food, I still went to top off my supplies as well, with coffee and tea besides.

If the Governor of Maryland had done what the Governor of Virginia did, and announce a stay-at-home order effective immediately, I would have been OK.  Nothing absolutely essential was missing from my stock, but the prospect of being cut off prompted a response out of anxiety and fear.  I knew this, even as I was carrying it out.  Having come home from it, I was not in any way feeling better.  And I knew, in my conscious, rational mind, that this would be the case.

It is fashionable to say that material goods do not provide inner peace.  We apply that saying to luxuries, usually luxuries that other people flaunt that we ourselves cannot afford.  It is more sobering to reflect that the same applies to necessities in time of crisis, where one would think that some comfort would be derived from the knowledge that we would not starve.  

It's the loss of stability, the sense of the world we knew falling apart, of fundamental uncertainty about the future, which lies at the root of my anxiety, not material shortage.  I'm still working, the financial system that supports my compensation still functions... but what assurance do we possess that will all be here next year?  Less than we did last year.

It's only now that I realize how exceptionally fortunate, or perhaps exceptionally ignorant, was our country's situation, even through all the hysteria.  Those in government never presumed to take the powers that they are using now.  If they are justified, then we are in for an actual plague.  If they are not, we have set a precedent of tyranny that is likely to erode, perhaps permanently, the tradition of us as a free people.  

Will we even miss it?  We tell ourselves stories about what would cause us to revolt, but when faced with a thread like coronavirus, we demand that someone control a situation that we could not control ourselves.  We called what we desired liberty, but was it really just a mandate to have power over our own circumstances?  A claim to power disguised as an immunity from power.

Do I merit such a claim?  The irrationality of my actions do not seem to support it.  Does anyone?