Here we are again, staring down the barrel of another winter, and right on schedule, the media apparatus has vomited up its annual manual for the functionally illiterate: ‘Five Tips to Survive a Cold.’ I have spent three decades watching this civilization slide toward the drain, but nothing quite captures our collective intellectual bankruptcy like the realization that, in the year 2024, the human race still needs to be reminded by a digital listicle to drink water when their throat feels like it’s been massaged by a belt sander. It is a stunning indictment of our species that we can split the atom and map the genome, yet every December we act as though the concept of ‘resting while sick’ is a profound, esoteric secret passed down by a Tibetan monk on a mountain top. The truth, of course, is that these articles exist because the news cycle is a ravenous, starving beast that must be fed even if the only thing on the menu is the journalistic equivalent of wet cardboard.

Let’s dissect the first ‘tip’ offered by the benevolent arbiters of wellness: Hydration. The advice is always to ‘drink plenty of fluids,’ as if the average citizen hasn't already spent the last decade clutching a three-gallon, insulated steel tumbler like it’s a religious icon. We are a society obsessed with hydration to the point of neurosis, yet the moment a virus enters the scene, we supposedly revert to the state of a desert-dwelling lizard. The suggestion to drink water is not medical advice; it is a desperate attempt to fill whitespace. It ignores the fact that for a significant portion of the population, the ‘fluids’ in question are likely overpriced, neon-colored electrolyte drinks or artisanal teas that cost more than a gallon of gasoline. We are told to hydrate so that we may more efficiently flush our systems of the pathogens, but no amount of water can flush away the realization that we are paying eighteen dollars for a bottle of ‘immune-boosting’ juice that is essentially sugar water flavored with a hint of desperation.

Then comes the inevitable command to ‘rest.’ This is perhaps the most hilariously cruel joke in the entire repertoire of health journalism. In an economy that views four hours of sleep as a personal failing and ‘the hustle’ as a secular religion, the advice to ‘take it easy’ is nothing short of a provocation. For the average worker, ‘resting’ is a luxury reserved for the landed gentry or the terminally unemployed. The American labor machine demands that you drag your feverish, hacking carcass into an open-plan office or onto a retail floor so you can efficiently distribute your germs to the rest of the herd. To tell a person living paycheck to paycheck to ‘listen to their body’ is like telling a man on fire to enjoy the warmth. It is a hollow, performative gesture from a media class that has forgotten what it’s like to have a boss who counts your bathroom breaks. We don’t rest because we aren't allowed to; we simply oscillate between various states of exhaustion until our organs eventually stage a coup.

And what of the supplements? The zinc, the Vitamin C, the elderberry syrups that taste like a cough drop’s bad dream? The article admits there is no cure, yet it persists in dangling these placebos before us like carrots before a particularly dim-witted mule. The supplement industry is a multibillion-dollar monument to human gullibility, a way for the ‘worried well’ to feel as though they have some semblance of agency in a world that is fundamentally chaotic. We swallow these pills because we cannot accept the indignity of a minor virus. We want a shortcut, a hack, a way to ‘optimize’ our recovery so we can get back to the treadmill forty-five minutes faster. It is the ultimate capitalist fantasy: that health is something you can buy in a bottle at a strip mall. We are so terrified of the natural rhythm of illness—the necessary pause, the quiet misery—that we will ingest anything that promises to turn our immune system into a high-speed processor.

Finally, we have the advice to ‘stay home.’ This is the ultimate irony in an age where we have never been more isolated, yet never more crowded. We are told to sequester ourselves to avoid spreading the pestilence, as if the society we’ve built isn't already a series of disconnected bunkers. The ‘common’ cold is the only thing we actually share anymore; it is the last vestige of the public square. When you cough in a crowded elevator, you are engaging in the most honest form of social networking available in the twenty-first century. You are reminding everyone around you that they are made of meat and vulnerability. These ‘tips’ are not here to help you get better. They are here to provide a thin veneer of control over a process that is essentially an existential reminder of our own decay. You will get sick, you will be miserable, you will leak fluids from various orifices, and eventually, if you’re lucky, you will stop. No amount of lemon-infused tea or performative napping is going to change the fact that nature thinks you are a very amusing petri dish. So, by all means, drink your water. It won’t save your soul, but at least your corpse will be well-hydrated.