The promise of consumerism is self-improvement—that a Vitamix or a new notebook will improve your life in a demonstrable fashion. A new sweater isn’t an actual fix for an argument with an old friend, but it temporarily does the trick, creating a healthy-enough distraction that allows the mind to move on from the larger, more pressing issue. My natural reaction to change of any sort has been to bury my head in the sand for as long as is humanly possible, until it is absolutely necessary for me to acknowledge it. Leaning into denial is one way to face this crisis, but it is not necessarily the most sustainable. Denial is easier, though, because it makes the unwieldy more manageable.

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It is remarkably easy to pretend that nothing is awry because plenty of superficial distraction abounds. Looking at Twitter for five minutes feels bad, but closing that app and opening Home Design, an iPhone game that allows me to pretend to buy home goods, feels better. One hour passes, and I’ve decorated a very nice bathroom and started plans for a farmhouse kitchen without thinking about the scores of corpses stacked like firewood, awaiting burial in mass graves in public parks. But leaning into denial right now will only work for a little while, because the bottom will eventually fall out.

The news is unavoidable, no matter how hard I try. On one of my infrequent grocery store trips, I stood in front of the pickle section, contemplating whether or not $6.99 for a jar of peppadew peppers was the correct amount of money to spend for an item I would consume in two days’ time. The news over the loudspeakers rattled off the latest death statistics for New York City, followed by an update on the overloaded and overwhelmed hospitals, the desperate need for ventilators, and a strident urging for everyone to stay inside.