Post Number 44 : A Millennial’s (Existential) Brush With A Global Pandemic

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

An essay capturing the thoughts upon being quarantined at home due to the pandemic

It wasn’t in my plan to be under a semi-quarantined state upon coming home because of a global pandemic. I suppose it wasn’t in anyone’s plan but here we all are. 2020 has turned out to be quite the year, hasn’t it? Coronavirus has brought the flurry of commotion around the world to a surprising standstill. And thus began my first brush with a global pandemic.

Let me clarify here itself that I speak from a position of great privilege. As of this post, the hardest challenge I am facing is to ensure my continuous amusement within the confines of my home. When it became certain that the virus was not showing signs of receding anytime soon, and that social isolation/quarantine was imminent, I set about to meticulously and (over) ambitiously plan a set of activities to do. If I was stuck for a few weeks, then I was going to make the most of it.

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Photo by Vojtech Okenka on Pexels.com

As the initial wave of social media commiserations and meme-ry gave way to an unusual scenario where I had an abundance of time and a paucity of tasks, I started questioning the purpose of my burgeoning list. Perhaps it was due to the life I have had in recent years that I had become attuned to preoccupation. Perhaps it was reverse psychology at play, that when asked not to step out, all that I craved was to step out. Perhaps it was an urge to compensate for missed outings with something equally impactful. But what point was I trying to prove? And, to whom?

If I would push through the arbitrary list I created before time, I would inevitably pile on more things to do. If I wouldn’t, I would feel disappointed. For once, I decided to forego it all. I pushed myself into slowing an already slowed down life, with no agenda in sight. It was a rare occurrence, this pandemic, and the gift of time it was giving me. Why spend it in a way I spend most days?

The first few days were rough. I was antsy and constantly switching between things to occupy my mind. I would crib how boring this pandemic malarkey was. But now, time has begun to do its job. As I’ve started adjusting to the newfound stillness around, I’ve felt myself slowing down. I noticed it when I was reading. I’ve started taking longer to absorb the sentences, I pause and re-read lines, I actively play the words in my head as my own screenplay, and I love it! I re-read an old book and felt that I had skipped over so much the first time I had read it. I hadn’t even realized that my recreational reading had switched into auto-pilot where I grasped the gist but didn’t admire the way the words strung and spun and wove into strands of language. Perhaps, my recreational reading had become too performative for my social media profile(s). A way to peacock myself to those around me.

I used to think I was attuned to solitude. But I’ve realized that what I’ve had was only its visage. I am not even sure if it’s possible to experience solitude in today’s time, given how all of us are so intricately woven into the social web. What I had been mistaking as solitude were two inferior symptoms – quietness and aloofness. As I generally do, I turned to the written word for some insight. Currently, I’ve been on a Maria Popova binge. If you wish to, please explore her blog – Brain Pickings.

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Blog is such an inadequate word to connote the medium in which she writes. Brain Pickings is structured as essays where centuries of knowledge converge across universal themes. Reading through some essays on solitude, the links to which I’ll append, I realized that solitude has had mixed reactions from society. Sara Maitland writes that –

“We live in a society which sees high self-esteem as a proof of well-being, but we do not want to be intimate with this admirable and desirable person. We see moral and social conventions as inhibitions on our personal freedoms, and yet we are frightened of anyone who goes away from the crowd and develops “eccentric” habits. We believe that everyone has a singular personal “voice” and is, moreover, unquestionably creative, but we treat with dark suspicion (at best) anyone who uses one of the most clearly established methods of developing that creativity — solitude. We think we are unique, special and deserving of happiness, but we are terrified of being alone.”

I hope I’m not alone with my existential concerns. I’ve seen people flood virtual spaces with exaggerated, mocking claims of struggling with the breakdown of their clockwork routines. But amidst all that, there are warm stories – of people singing with neighbours, of people playing on windows, of people relaxing with pets. People taking a moment to pause. To do nothing. To take the break they yearned for. Whether we like it or not, most of us have been given this time. For those of us hale and hearty to only be preoccupied with how to fill it and resolute enough to ensure that it turns out productive, I read that Newton produced his ground-breaking work whilst under social isolation. Talk about pressure! My intellectual contributions in the time of a crisis are unfortunately limited to this blog post. Hardly my magnum opus. But for anyone out there with a creative bug, aching to put something out, I hope you find solace in Maria Popova’s words,

“We sieve the world through the mesh of (these) certitudes, tautened by nature and culture, but every once in a while – whether by accident or conscious effort – the wire loosens and the kernel of a revolution slips through.”

 

Links on Solitude & Creative Work

 

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