For about two months, I've sat back and observed this continual chatter over essential and non-essential. I've seen the arguments in Europe, and in the US. It's a fascinating topic.
The problem with this, is that you could line up a hundred people, and ask them to have a front-porch talk with you, with the topic being essential and non-essential, and you'd get one-hundred different explanations over the two degrees of a mighty important topic.
Some folks would tell you that McDonalds is an essential service. Some would argue that while dining-in with McDonalds is not essential....as long as you can drive up and buy via the 'window'.....then it's essential.
Some folks would tell you that beer or alcohol sales is extremely essential, and you shouldn't be messing with that part of society. Some other folks would tell you that the first non-essential thing that they'd shut down....is bars and nightclubs.
Some folks would argue that entertainment divisions (like TV)....aren't essential, and you could easily shutdown live shows on TV without any loss to society. Others would argue that TV is essential, in all functions (even gutter-soap opera stuff).
Some folks would say that open dialog with a friend each Tuesday at the city park for an hour....debating bad movies....is essential for their mental well-being. Others....particularly the police....would approach you and your friend, and try to chase you away....saying this dialog isn't essential.
Drug dealers would tell you that their occupation and thriving business....is absolutely essential. The police would say otherwise.
Some authorities would say that religion isn't really essential, and shutting down church operations for two or three months isn't a big deal. Others would argue that their entire perspective on living and believing in something....is geared toward a weekly visit to some church, and they need religion.
Some teachers will say their teaching business with your 12-year old kid is essential. After four weeks of the kid at home, and trying to make due without school.....you (the parent) eventually discover that the kid really isn't that smart, and whatever they are doing at the school.....doesn't appear to anything essential, and in some ways....a joke. You also say the same thing about your 20-year old daughter in her second year of college, and she's remarkably dimwited compared to your 12-year-old son.
You and your spouse might reach a point where you openly debate essential things and non-essential things nightly....with the spouse suggesting that your skipping a bath every other day is messing up hygiene expectations. You counter that staying clean while you exist on furlough.....doesn't really mean nightly baths are necessary.
During this virus period.....you start to think over your attire, and dress mostly in Hawaiian shirts and shorts out of the 1980s (the stuff you kept in storage)....saying this is the new essential 'you'. The wife argues about this and threatens to burn the essential attire.
You have TV moderators and pretender journalists who want to bring in experts on essentialness, and they spend forty-odd minutes trying to talk over non-essential stuff, and mostly put you into the mindset of hitting mute-button....because the chatter is non-essential.
You sit amazed nightly as your governor or mayor tries to imply that they are experts at life, and know what's essential. Along about the third week of this....you figure out that this idiot political figure lives in some fantasy world, and has no attachment to ordinary people.
So I leave with this one thought.....you don't really know what is essential, until you reach the point of missing it. It's kinda like walking in and doing your business in the toilet and reaching for the toilet-paper....to realize there's simply none left. Then for a moment, TP is remarkably essential.
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