Listening to Mr. Hopkins today while I write and work; he really knows how to brighten things up.

Today someone at work asked me if I'm ok. I said, yeah, in an upbeat enough way, I think, and they asked again, "are you sure?". I took a step back, expecting some sarcasm about a piece of broken equipment, and said, "is something wrong?", and they diffused the conversation with a comment about how things often break in this factory. It made me wonder if my negative feelings have become apparent externally.

Really though, this mask thing is getting me down. My head keeps circling on the issue, trying to adopt a charitable answer to the question, "Why would my company leadership, after so long justifying their position on masks by deference to the CDC, now ignore the CDC's position in favor of maintaining these kinds of restrictions -- rules which cause discomfort and draw an outward and unprofitable distinction in cleanness between employees?" And, I find myself often frustrated by how the current policy explicitly declares about itself that it does not reveal anyone's medical information, making it only a very thinly veiled policy of actually revealing everyone's medical information. I try to imagine that they're legitimately concerned about people's safety -- as the safety manager told me, "we are responsible to produce a safe working environment, and if someone unvaccinated were unmasked, it would be an unsafe environment". But neither the CDC nor OSHA hold that position, and so the determination about what is an "unsafe environment" comes not from the research itself (which I presented before), nor from the organizations responsible for publicizing the research itself and suggesting policy (the CDC and OSHA). It is a purely subjective and unsupported ruling on what makes people safe or unsafe. This means that there is someone in the higher-ups who is more worried about COVID than "the science" itself. Given the information we have about COVID, I really have a hard time grasping how someone can rationally maintain that kind of fear, and an even less reasonable thought seems to roll around in my mind -- that the policy of covering the faces of unvaccinated people, and making them wear a badge indicating it, is to shame unvaccinated individuals into vaccinating themselves. 

Which is more charitable, to suppose that the company leadership is irrational or that they are ruthless?

The above question, which finds itself at the front of my mind daily, whenever I don the uncomfortable veil, is drawing me toward a place where I may decide that, while I like my boss and most of my coworkers, I don't like my company. And, to prevent my accessing that place, (I prefer to like my workplace), I have been trying to think of an effective means of protest -- something that will make my point without causing any trouble. I haven't thought of anything yet, but that's where my mind is these days. 

But when I'm not thinking of that, the instructive work I'm making for my son has been often in my thoughts. I think I've figured out how I can organize it without putting too much priority on empiricism, nor neglecting the ease-of-access which empiricism offers. I'll start the manual by explaining good hermeneutics, and I'll make literature and epistemics into subchapters within the hermeneutic discussion. In fact, hermeneutics will be the primary thrust of the whole manual, and all other topics will be extensions and applications of the hermeneutic approach -- I think this is fitting and natural, since scripture itself says that it is effective for instruction, to equip the man of God for every good work. And so, it seems that hermeneutics, (which are really just basic, common-sense linguistic tools, and applications of scripture to itself), form the first conscious basis for all other inquiry, including inquiry into the question of how that hermeneutic itself is justified. And so, hermeneutics must produce epistemics, and epistemics must produce hermeneutics. The matter can be worked in either direction, but God has not instructed us to develop epistemics on our own in order to reach toward scripture, by a rout other than direct reference to scripture; no, the approach most consistent with my position, and most obedient to God's word, and most deferential to God's own preeminence and glory, is to go first to the scripture, and from it learn how we are enabled by God to trust our senses enough to know that the answers we've obtained from scripture are true in absolute. And so, step 1 is hermeneutics, which requires only the faculty which God affords singularly to humans -- that is, the complexity of our ability to communicate. The ability to read isn't a prerequisite for hermeneutics, but "how can they believe if they have not heard?" -- reading is just another way to hear. So hermeneutics doesn't depend on literacy, but literacy is very beneficial because it enables us to "hear" from a host of voiceless sources, and lends itself to the same epistemic answers concerning trust for our senses &c..

"You'll have a home with me, just as long as there is a day."