An interesting opinion, to which you are entitled, of course. The same holds true for highway speeding and covering a "regular" sneeze; 100% compliance is not realistic. The concept of speed limits strikes me as sensible; when I fail to comply, I can't claim not to understand this attempt to address public safety or that I am somehow exempt. I cover my sneezes because the behavior is too deeply ingrained as good manners and public hygiene and costs me nothing. I admit it - I cover my sneeze even when I'm alone in a room. Now, with a highly contagious airborne virus that may sideline me but kill my neighbor AND given relatively low-cost, low-risk options to help curb a very real problem that affects at least enough of us to support this thread, why not accept mild inconvenience to protect others especially given the number who are unreachable or else inclined to use the unreachable as cover?
Congratulations on the luxury of choices necessary to support your philosophy. My own philosophy is one that cannot disregard the balance between my choices and potential harm to OTHERS or consign asthmatics, hypertensives, diabetics, and other immunocompromised persons to their respective homes so I can go play however I like. Nor can I pretend that making my next-door neighbor, a 3d-grade teacher, "choose" between going to work (income, career) and staying home so as not to inadvertently infect her Type I diabetic husband, asthmatic son or her elderly mother is fair or even reasonable. Unless the very question runs counter to your philosophy, what would you choose in that situation? As the immunocompromised (MS, in remission) but longtime employee of a small business owner that caters to the public, which would you "choose": update your will and work or quit and stay home? Maybe your philosophy would dismiss each question without consideration as "her problem, not mine." If so, then I grant the consistency in logic. Party on.
I do not mean to be personal. I don't mean to debate because I doubt my ability to persuade. I mean only to express, as civilly as possible, my own frustration with a philosophy that is quite popular here in Texas. Months into watching others celebrate life, cavorting from salon to cocktail parties to family gatherings, even as area hospitalizations reach capacity and other countries reopen with greater stability, I puzzle over a worldview that so minimizes the role of personal responsibility for the individual who functions within a society comprised of other individuals. I don't know from mask shaming, but can't celebrate a person's choice to opt out of low-cost, low-risk measures to help protect the less "invincible" from real harm. Name the residual emotion whatever you like: disappointment, shame, resentment, Fred, or Scooter. In the grand scheme of all things pandemic, my own philosophy allows me to care relatively less for the feelings of those who opt out of simple preventive measures and messaging for whatever reason ... but I wear my mask around them anyway. #yourewelcome
I sincerely wish you (all) continued good health, if only to limit the potential impact on the health of all you encounter who hope to continue productive lives despite dramatically different sets of "choices." "Public health" means that we both matter, as do our actions, even when we'd prefer to think otherwise.