New old worries

On the surface, it seems like life in coronavirus times presents me with new ethical quandaries:

• Yesterday, I went to the grocery store. Every cashier seemed to be above 60, including mine. My demand for food was putting these people at risk by making them be there. Should I not go to the grocery store?
• If not the grocery store, what if I order food online from Amazon or a similar source? Am I not just changing the source of the threat for the worker supplying me from customers in a store to co-workers in a warehouse? 
• Should I order take-out from local restaurants that aren't allowed to have sit-down customers any more, so they can at least continue to make some money, or am I just putting them at risk of infecting each other in the kitchen?
• Is there, in fact, any way for me to continue to consume during this crisis that doesn't put these workers in jeopardy? I can, of course, try to reduce my consumption. I'm not going to buy the grass seed I need to fix my awful lawn this spring until the threat is over. But I also would like to try to keep about two weeks of food on hand at the house in case one of us gets the coronavirus and we all need to self-isolate. Which means I need to stock up every few days. Is there any ethical way to do that other than hunting my food, which I don't know how to do? 

These might be questions I'm framing in a new way or with a new urgency, but when I think about it, they're not that different from questions that mildly bother me every day. Should I patronize a fast food restaurant when the workers in it are underpaid? Does refusing to go there help them in any way, or does it just cost them the patronage that keeps them in a job they need, even if the job doesn't pay well? Does Amazon exploit its workers, and is it bad for the American economy overall? Should I not buy things from them, even when it's obviously the most economical and convenient way to get something? Is there any way for me to consume in a way that doesn't contribute to the unhappiness of others, especially when I think of the complete supply chain stretching all over the world?

I don't know another way to survive than buying what I need. I don't think I'm capable of becoming a subsistence organic farmer. (And even if I could, to do that would still require me first making enough money to buy a farm and everything I need to run it, which would involve decades of earning and consuming.) There doesn't seem to be a way out of the trap of my existence contributing to the unhappiness of others. 

Generally, I can only stand to consider these questions for so long. It ends with me just sort of blankly resolving to keep going and to try to be okay with not being okay, to live in the absurdity. But every act of consumption on my part feels like I'm numbing myself to how not okay the way we all live is. 

Most people who don't worry about low-paid workers figure that it's a free labor market, and if those workers want a job that pays better, it's up to them to do something to get one. We shouldn't feel bad for them if they don't. I guess I have a hard time buying that because of how long I was once stuck in retail work, how impossible it once seemed to me I'd ever escape, and how lucky I am to have been rescued from it. Things happen in life, and a lot of people end up in places they didn't mean to be. The free market is not a perfect mechanism, and it doesn't lead to a perfect meritocracy. The American Dream can get sidetracked by bad luck as much as by bad choices. 

In any event, for now, living through the crisis for me is shaping up to just be a time when it's harder for me to push aside thoughts I never quite fully succeed at pushing away even in happier times. I feel utterly parasitic, with no way to lessen the burden or share the risk of better people.