The Slap Heard Around the World: How Will Smith/Chris Rock Explains Our Emergence from COVID

People are still talking about it. The Will Smith Chris Rock slap at the Oscar's.

This is not the first altercation of its sort that has happened of late. Though it happens to be one that is most visible. At 12:30pm two Saturdays ago, on the pool deck of my gym, a white man dressed in jeans, sneakers and a pull over, grabbed another white man, equally dressed by the neck and pushed him off a chair and into swimming equipment. A week earlier, a white man with tattoos up his arm driving a squat, red SUV stepped out of his car in a crowded parking lot to yell at a woman driving a black sedan. Out her window he stood and hollered. She listened to him and then drove away. Our painter, Tony Solis of Solis Painting says these types of interactions have been directed toward him all through COVID. Probably because he has to tell people the truth.

As a brief reminder, the COVID threat decreased from deadly to inconvenient as people everywhere have begun vaccinations. What does this mean? It means that we have been ensconced in two years of hibernation, reclusive life, paired down worlds that were six feet apart, covered up to the eyes, and consisted primarily of technology. We are emerging from a COVID induced jetlag. Very few grew up attending award shows. Hollywood’s elite is a relatively new and increasingly growing group. So, emotional ability to exist in faster worlds like Hollywood is not innate. Moving at the speed of Hollywood is an specialty, evolutionizary trait. As Christopher Lee writes in his book Jet Lag, a part of his Object Lessons series, Jetlag in the most physical sense is missing the movement itself. Based on Smith’s actions, I would ascertain that the emotional movement in Hollywood needs to change. As a society, we want to get back to the clock of entertainment we were once on, but our timing and interconnection is off. Which could explain why this behavior is happening.

Pre-Covid, as a coping mechanism our human minds brushed over disagreeable information and dumped it without due process.

Some latched onto it with negativity bias and a small group were able to use the information to evolve. We have a lot to remember. Societally, socially, physically and emotionally. There is a lot of catch up to do. Lessons we learned over years of experiences have been undone. Congenial sayings, ways of dealing with one another, anger management all the learned behaviors we were mastering in 2019 were not practiced from 2020-2022. While we are not at the end of COVID, it has definitely evolved. Months ago my friend, Dr. Mark Goldstein, President of Carroll Hospital Medical Staff says, "we have entered the epidemic stage of COVID." Fauci is now saying the same thing. Epidemic means a disease localized to a region. In my mind, it is something we can now live with and navigate. Pandemic meant it was an infection that travelled the world. Anything with a global reach I poetically interpret, pandemic COVID included, as life altering.

How do we get our life altering events? And what is one? Job loss, death, terminal diagnosis, divorce. There are at least ten. But instead of looking at it through science, let’s examine this concept through Hollywood—an equitable environment for societal analysis. So I don’t know Will Smith and Jada Pinkett directly, but Baltimore is small so seven degrees of separation is too. I am at a one on this one. So, I feel somehow connected to the situation and that I may have a new way of deciphering this publicly altering perceptive of one of Hollywood’s most famous Hero Archetype symbols, Will Smith. There are twelve parts of the hero’s journey according to Joseph Campbell and I would consider Mr. Smith emerging from step 7—"Approach to the Inmost Cave” and the slap as step 8—"The Ordeal.” Now once he emerges through all twelve steps, he like all heroes who embark on this journey become reborn individuals and start again. Mr. Smith has gone through these stages over and over again on screen in movies like “The Pursuit of Happyness,” “Men In Black” and “Bad Boys.”

In America, we pay attention to celebrities the same way the British observe the Royal Family. It is a proven communications theory, Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communications. We look to them, their personal and their movie persona actions as a guiding force as to how to live.

COVID had us all reeling into our own inner psyches but without the externalization of society. It is a form of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Like so many other privileged humans, Smith forgot what the outside world looked like. For two years, because of COVID, we haven’t existed in the same type of society we became accustomed to living in. One where we went to parties, visited coffee shops daily, hung out with the masses monthly. Conducted activities with many people inside. These were the basics of what people did and many of us followed celebrity leads for these activities.

Due to our access to television, zoom and other videoconferencing platforms, we have been coddled by the safety of our home environment (many have, not all).

According to statista.com, there are 129.9 million households in the US. For many of those units, COVID meant changes from seeing one another for six hours or less a day to spending fourteen or more hours together daily. For two entire years. This move from society level social phenomena to family level social phenomon meant the disappearance of unaddressable random interactions—being cut off by another vehicle in traffic, a dirty look, an unheld door. Most everything had closure. Which satisfied the bodies need to let go. For others, namely individuals in essential businesses, there was never a stop. So they continued to move forward at the societal and social speeds previously set forth prior to COVID. They never stopped. Essential workers continued to suppress their anger, frustrations and fears of which there were exponentially more of during COVID and moved on. And so, here enters the schism.

Entertainers are forced to suppress their displeasure about jokes. Their life is public and so is ridicule. Smith has made a fortune off of a formula for movie making that works. He must be rigid to some extent because of his financial success based on this formula. He and his wife were known to be in an open relationship—something he affirmed in public in 2021. Probably on Pinkett’s behalf, a control-worthy way to manage infidelity she saw role modeled in her childhood or perhaps a genetic inclination toward polygamy. From my perspective, Rock’s alopecia joke masculinized Pinkett. As most people who loose their head hair are men. My guess is that the comment reminded Smith of their marriage. And bam, “keep my wife out of your mouth” was a direct yet Freudian slip of Smith’s to assert his own masculinity and control over the uncontrollable. The past circumstances of his marriage. A concept that has since changed which would make him jetlagged about the past. A negative and natural response we all have to new situations. Forgetting that we have traveled forward. Male/female divide is our next Earthly feud. The world needs to catch up. And Will, Jada, and Chris are the beginning of the discussion. I am fascinated because this is the work of my next novel.

Nonetheless all this change and disruption to consistency altered our social phenomena. Political role modeling from the Trump era, the resounding force that lead our country during the pandemic phase of COVID was what we followed. The observable actions in society that influence the actions of others. Because of COVID, many of us lost boundaries, manners, trust, common sense and stamina of utilizing the computer of our wisdom based knowledge. The slap Mr. Smith gave to comedian, Mr. Chris Rock is a perfect example of this form of emotional jetlag. We are all connecting to the last visible semblance of behavior we knew to be true.

All this change, and disruption to consistency and influence altered our social phenomena.

Social Phenomena is defined as the observable actions in society that influence the actions of others. The actions of Social Cognitive Theory of Mass Communications the ones Hollywood is responsible for disseminating. For many who were able to work from home, the social influence from family members and our own algorithms of information we imbibed set our clocks. Words, vocabulary, appearances from television, the internet, books, magazines and newspapers was what we knew and tested against our shrunken social environment. For example, if we watched our father eat salad with his hands and watched YouTubers do the same things, we would have thought that behavior normal. However as a hospitality expert, I can tell you that it is proper to only conduct such behavior when the food item in question has a built-in handle. Salad does not. Their bodies normalized with the few around them. If there wasn’t biochronologic structure (standard sleep times), most every organ was reset over and over again. The body went haywire like it often does after a trip from India to the US. And now we are resetting those systems again. People want a reset and this physical change becomes both a societal and social shift. Time, speed, experience, environment. Pandemic changes the masses evolutionarily.

Non-essential people spent two years losing what they knew based on Wisdom of experience. Most likely replacing it with information contrived through a non-fact-checked algorithm. There were no longer opportunities to practice basic social skills, in an environment that allowed us to learn, the masses. We existed in environments that fought against much of what we wisely learned and practiced socially to accept because we never left our caves. Travel helps us to grow.

To move against the flow of the crowd, on my own is disorienting, in much the same way jetlag is.

My brain is confronted with a challenge to create new and untested pathways. Fighting through this jungle so to speak is exhausting and so I want to return to what I know. According to the Center for Disease Control, 50% percent, over half of all children world-wide are exposed to abuse each year. That results in steady annual increases in our world population of humans suffering trauma, abuse or dysfunction. During COVID our desire to think separate of the past/family we grew up with was either reinforced or negated by our place in society. All too often, that place was one where our progress in reactivity away from past abuses was not encouraged. The natural inclination of Jetlag, a desire to return to movement (whether positive or negative) has brought many of us backwards into unhealthy reference points. We need to emerge from COVID self-aware. And restart our engines.

TO NOT TREAT OUR JETLAG IS GOING TO HARM GROWTH

To respond one-dimensionally to the dysfunction represented by the Will Smith Chris Rock altercation is not the answer. Both men are potentially wrong. Mr. Smith announced that he would no longer participate in the Oscars. But will removing oneself from a system one does not agree with create the necessary change we want to see in the future? I infer that the American way of joking about uncomfortable problems is no longer the solution to making the world a better place. We have to stop sugar coating our pain. What looks perfect on the outside is so often the normalcy we need to question. We need to find other ways to have these uncomfortable conversations. The Dutch are very good at stating face value. Perhaps sharing experiences and knowledge is the way to move forward. We do not need to stay behind the guise of perfection. Perfection in the sense so many Americans define it is not a happy, prosperous place.

Teresa May at a recent Speaker Series event stated that growing numbers of youth want to live in a militant state. This jetlag for the past is a threat to Democracy. Youth do not know what life was like when people were not encouraged to speak their mind. The conversation around Will Smith’s response to Chris Rock leads me to believe that a conversation about democracy, the privilege it delivers and the work it requires is an important conversation to have. Democracy is one that allows life to be a consensual relationship with the world. One where we must determine what is needed for individuals across the globe to experience success as a whole.

For many, our ability to practice these healthier social behaviors was squashed by COVID. So people were not having experiences where behavior was responded to in a diverse social setting. And so I for one was emotionally changed. I was able to think toward the positive. Changed to expect that I had the familiarity, connection or basis at which to seek out and find closure whenever I wanted. As the spouse of a quiet, introvert. I found joy in the newly changed world. Much of what I questioned due to silence was assuaged. My inner balance grew in strength. And for people I was never personally close to, I continued to let their behavior wash over me like rain from the sky. I sought the path of least disturbance and followed that, thinking “that person who just cut me off needed to get ahead, and if that is what they needed, who am I to criticize or be annoyed?” But to emotionally test myself without reinforcement, exhaustion sets in. Just in the way it does while watching a thriller.

TREATING THE JETLAG OF COVID

Fatigue is a physical manifestation of jetlag. Focusing too much on one aspect of life and not enough on others in my opinion is the cause. In simpler terms, this is lack of balance. Travel itself can be energizing because of all the excitement of welcomed change. But because we move forward with such speed, all too often our physical bodies exist in pain. Movement, exercise and removing dead weight are necessary parts of travel. As is the need to refill.

The best part of COVID was that some had an opportunity to rest. But for mothers, frontline workers, educators, advocates and medical staff COVID was non stop. Many of us used medications to move forward, at least I know I did, because that was our only option. That or a dissolution of place. And I couldn’t allow my inequity to fuel my childrens’. The use of medication in treatment of jetlag is not foreign to American society. NASA’s astronauts are medicated to function while jetlagged in space. Medication was for many of us our only option and much of what people enjoyed as hobbies, creative outlets or physical exertions was set aside because survival was of highest importance.

But survival is often defined as overcoming what happened during our childhood.

According to accountant, consultant and podcaster, work humanist expert, Susan Ni Chriodian of Beyond the Numbers our whole selves exist at work whether we suppress it or not. As humans we are social beings, she says. And not to process our life, to not share that is just as egregious as it was 2.5 million years ago to not tell your sibling or neighbor that a lion was hanging out beyond the cave. This hording of information eats away at us. As evolved beings, fatigue can manifest by going through rapid change. Especially if we keep in that which needs to leave. The information becomes parasitic instead of symbiotic. Instead of helping us, it eats away. because ourut enjoyment was set on the backburner for some. Others who appeared indulgent connected with people via zoom and were able to take music lessons, attend mind expanding seminars. Many walked and hiked. The outdoors became once again like it was in the 20’s, pre-television, one of the most popular activities. According to the National Park Service, “Although overall visitation dropped, a number of parks experienced record crowds and welcomed new visitors.”

Connection with nature and sunlight exposure are always some of the most important ways to cure jetlag. Vitamin D pills which give us what the sun does not, preserve positivity and energy as the sun does. And look what happened during COVID. We were invited to a farm by a natural builder, Polly Bart. “Because the trees have a powerful way of getting us to heal” she said. The book Understory supports her argument. But when it came time for my physical body to return to society. A previous ENTJ, extrovert, turned eiNTJ (small represent my shift to half external/half internal) due to the onset of my writing career, I experienced an animalistic survivalist strategy. I am sure I am not alone. As a COVID-evolved human, I learned that being closer than six feet to others without a mask was not a way to survive. And so my physical self let off COVID responses to connectivity to connect me into the future I learned existed. Prior to the endemic stage, my food allergies and buying of Trident xylitol filled gum subconsciously placed my physical self into a couvade state of COVID which I liken to sympathetic male pregnancy symptoms that responded to the contraction of the virus by more than 512 million people world wide (according to worldmeter.info. Anxiety arrived for others, a lack of desire to talk with strangers for me was strengthened over my engrained sense of obligation. And so when we return to these situations abruptly, we are harsh with others. The way we would be with our onw family. Adversarial because we do not want to be around people or we don’t want to return to the situations that gave us pain in the past.

Emotional jetlag and perhaps the reason for Will Smith’s slap is that COVID, like jetlag stripped us of reality as we knew it.

During travel, popularity goes out the door as does beauty and physical prowess. Because the value of appearances change as we navigate from one culture to the next. Physical size. Skin color, music. They all change based on surroundings, systems and language. His home life was accepting of this familial change. Perhaps Chris Rock’s joke was jetlagged with information and it brought Smith to the past. A autonomic, fight or flight response.

Performance high is draining. This is why jetlag can cause the onset of diseases—a disruption in the endocrine system. If I move backwards from the fact that endocrine resetting relieves jetlag systems, I realize that the endocrine system is a parallel physical example of how media would work while entering our bodies rapidly during travel.

RESPONDING TO JETLAG: THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

This is why there are a variety of forms of meditation that can help us process the symptoms of jetlag. Music, Beeja resets the endocrine system. Nidra resets the autonomic nervous system. Vipassana Mediation, Transcendental. This jetlag is a global syndrome. And we need a global solution. We must learn from non-western medicine. We must realize that the drugs we use to treat jetlag are only bandaids and the harm future success. Increases in sleep, REM production, biochronology are the answers. These are virtually inexpensive treatments. They are life altering, age decreasing. And In my opinion, the fountain of youth and survival are conjoined.