The world has become increasingly surreal to me. The launch of the Trump family crypto coins at the beginning of the year. That AI generated Gaza vision shared by Trump. The threat to annex Canada. The tariff rates on a giant cardboard, possibly calculated by ChatGPT. The tech CEO dinner at the White House and the praises they’d sung for Trump. My recent personal experience only added to that surrealness.
More than a month ago, I went to Checkpoint for a STI checkup. The staff there, as usual, asked about my sexual activity in the last few months and told me that it might not make sense for me to come every three months since in the past two years, everything had been negative and I wasn’t at high risk. Somehow I felt judged for not having enough sex.
And guess what, the next day I got a text telling me I tested positive for Gonorrhea. It was the first time in my life. I wasn’t too worried because I knew it’d probably happen sooner or later.
In the following two days I received some calls from a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t pick up. I assumed they were just scam calls.
On Friday I went in for the gonorrhea treatment. The doctor told me they had been trying to reach me for the past two days, because my HIV test was reactive.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. I couldn’t think. The doctor asked about my sexual role preference and my usage of PrEP. The doctor told me they had changed their test to be more sensitive so it’s possible it’s a false positive. The S/CO value was over the threshold, but not very high. I didn’t know anything about S/CO value.
He told me if I had come earlier in the week, I could’ve done the confirmatory test and received the result already. Since it was already Friday, I’d only get the result the following week.
I had a brutal weekend. I blamed myself for using the “on demand” method for taking the PrEP, and not always taking them correctly. If I had been, I would’ve been much less worried. I did some research on HIV testing, read up on S/CO and even read a few papers on it. I watched the movie And the Band Played On, I learned about the history of the AIDS epidemic and Randy Shilts. I thought about what to do if the confirmatory test turned out to be positive. The treatment for HIV has gotten a lot better over the years but I knew my life would change forever.
I asked myself over and over again, how could you be so fucking stupid?
I got a call from Checkpoint at noon on Monday. The confirmatory test was negative. I cried. Still, I asked for another test in one month. I went for a test this week and it was negative.
The last few weeks were pretty rough. It’s also a confirmatory experience for how lucky I have been so far in my life. I say this without pride or self-conceit, it’s hard for someone like me, from an impoverished Chinese village, to be here. It’s just statistics. I tried a bunch of things, applying for a scholarship in Canada, applying to work at a big tech company, investing, and they turned out better than I expected. I’m not going to be disingenuous and claim that everything is luck; I tried when things seemed impossible. I tried when I was scared, when I had no support. I tried doing things my own way instead of following the common path. But luck plays an equally important role. Some years it’s easier to get a scholarship. It’s much harder to get into the big tech companies when they’re doing rounds and rounds of layoffs than when they are in expansion mode. It’s much easier to get a good return on investment when we are in a historical bull market. Not everyone is as lucky as me. I’d even go further to claim that very few people have been luckier than me.
Acknowledging that some people are more disadvantaged than others due to no fault of their own shouldn’t be hard. Yet apathy seems to prevail. Some people can’t stand the word empathy. They make the world a worse place. They might engage in debates in name, but mutual understanding doesn’t happen without empathy. Shouting at each other back and forth is not reaching out to the other side, it’s just masturbatory performance, and it’s not an enjoyable sight. Some people just want to make a good life for themselves and their families. That itself is not easy. But for those who are more fortunate, I think they have the moral obligation to help the less fortunate. That’s not to say I’d judge people who don’t do that. I think one should primarily hold oneself to one’s own standards and strong opinions, rather than using these standards and opinions as weapons to knock people down. To many, my statement of moral obligation is indeed a strong opinion.
It’s easy to get lost in this capitalist world and fill one’s brain with nothing but how to make more money. And then even more money. Two weeks ago I read an article in the Financial Times titled ‘The Calculated Silence of America’s Business and Finance Leaders’. In the article, there was a quote from a senior finance executive and longtime Democratic donor, “I find what he is doing abhorrent, but the truth is I’ve been a huge beneficiary of Trump’s policies. The ‘big, beautiful bill’ cut my taxes, boosted cash flow for my company, and pumped stimulus into the market — so my portfolio keeps growing.” The top comment on that article is “Greedy cowards”. Concise but accurate. Then just one week ago, the tech CEOs went to a White House dinner and praised Trump to no end. Some defend these CEOs for their efforts to shield their companies from Trump’s attacks. I know that line of reasoning but it’s sickening nonetheless.
Trump’s USA, Trump’s world, I’d argue, is bringing moral degradation to everyone. As much as one hopes that what the U.S. does only affect the U.S., that’s simply not the reality. You are certain you’d get out scratch-free, until you get slapped with a 39% tariff. When unopposed, it normalizes corruption, cruelty, inequality, selfishness, and intolerance. It emboldens the worst kind of people. The world before Trump was far from perfect (I wasn’t fortunate enough to lead a sheltered life to be that naive), but it could be getting better instead of getting worse. Each day I feel I’m at the danger of becoming a worse person, of becoming numb to what’s happening.
I think the way to counter that is to make the effort to make the world a better place. I’m not merely a bystander to what’s happening. I can do a lot more than posting indignant screenshots and ranting on Instagram. I’m not a CEO*, so I don’t have the excuse to be a self-serving greedy coward. Trump’s USAID cuts, for example, have affected the ability of numerous organizations around the world to help the less fortunate. That’s one area I can contribute to. What I can do as one individual is limited, but I still believe it’s worthwhile. In a world of apathy, let’s show some empathy.
*It’s not my intention here to belittle all the CEOs. Tim Cook, for example, has donated to a lot of good causes. He might be questioning himself whether he’s becoming a worse person and vowed to do more good in other ways. I don’t want to speculate.