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Comfortably mostly isolated
Mar. 23rd, 2020 05:56 amAmid this pandemic I feel quite lucky. While I have been known to be eagerly social, such as in my undergraduate days, I was not always like that and I have spent much of my life without having friends close at hand. For instance, partly in knowing that I plan to return to the US, I don't have close friends locally and my nearest extended family lives over two hundred fifty miles away. My work history of moving from state to state or country to country has left me rootless, something I plan to start to fix with the next move. I have also done substantial amounts of telecommuting in the past, I prefer it, so working from home is just fine.
When I am apart from my whole family I do okay because I become rather productive and derive happiness from that instead. I can arrange everything without mind to or being distracted by others and I have more than a lifetime's engaging work on my to-do list. More commonly my past periods of isolation have been with my family. I am not saying that it doesn't change me as the weeks pass, it does, just not in a way that bothers me. Previously the most obvious effect for me has been the tolerable one of making other people seem curious and alien, on the rare occasions I did go out it began to feel like a safari trip to where the humans live to see how they behave and what their society is like, I had lost some familiarity with them.
I am also lucky to be living in a village within reach of much public land and to own a small car. Should I wish I can easily get out and about without coming near anybody else or much touching new surfaces and I carry hand sanitizer with me anyway. Just a few minutes ago I did my occasional thing of going outside to photograph the pretty dawn, on this occasion we had a pink cloud layer. Sometimes I run into a friendly neighbor who does likewise. This morning I did chat with him but briefly and at a distance. That seems to me a safe enough compromise, rather more alarming is seeing neighbors' children playing soccer and suchlike together in the square.
When I am apart from my whole family I do okay because I become rather productive and derive happiness from that instead. I can arrange everything without mind to or being distracted by others and I have more than a lifetime's engaging work on my to-do list. More commonly my past periods of isolation have been with my family. I am not saying that it doesn't change me as the weeks pass, it does, just not in a way that bothers me. Previously the most obvious effect for me has been the tolerable one of making other people seem curious and alien, on the rare occasions I did go out it began to feel like a safari trip to where the humans live to see how they behave and what their society is like, I had lost some familiarity with them.
I am also lucky to be living in a village within reach of much public land and to own a small car. Should I wish I can easily get out and about without coming near anybody else or much touching new surfaces and I carry hand sanitizer with me anyway. Just a few minutes ago I did my occasional thing of going outside to photograph the pretty dawn, on this occasion we had a pink cloud layer. Sometimes I run into a friendly neighbor who does likewise. This morning I did chat with him but briefly and at a distance. That seems to me a safe enough compromise, rather more alarming is seeing neighbors' children playing soccer and suchlike together in the square.
