The morale issue
I’ve just realized something about this whole situation – something very obvious and that we already knew, but I hadn’t quite noticed the issue before. I was doing yet another self-rebuke, of the kind I’m sure we’re all doing (Trump and the generic trumps excepted): the kind that goes “oh shut up, everyone’s in the same boat, stop whining, just shut up and get on with it”…and I realized there’s nothing to get on with. All we can “get on with” is being passive and hunkered down and distant. All we can psych ourselves up to do is stay inside and wait.
It’s seriously weird to give yourself or anyone else a shake and an order to stop complaining and get to…erm…nothing.
Not very inspiring, is it.
I was listening to YouTube last night, and every single ad was a PSA from some musician telling me to “stay at home.” YEAH, I KNOW, I’M DOING THAT ALREADY.
But they have to keep telling you because WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO???
Reminds me of Jessica (Decca) Mitford and her sister Debo, the Duchess of Devonshire. Decca was a lefty activist, and “being active” was a term of art with her and her friends; Debo once sent her a stiff official photo of herself and the Duke and captioned it “Andrew and me being active.”
Well if this happened in the 70’s I might complain a little (but not much really), now since there is so much media at our fingertips, movies, tv shows, and internet stuff, games, discussion boards, books delivered immediately to your device, ability to teleconference, etc. It really is a first world problem unless you have lost your livelihood or contracted the illness itself. Cheer the hell up. :D
Fortunately this hasn’t necessitated much change in my routine. I was already working at home, and I don’t mind staying at home for the most part. I do miss my long walks and grocery shopping, and I wish our son was still working and swimming, but other than that, it hasn’t been difficult.
I realize I’m not normal in any way.
Yes, my main change has been in theatre and travel. We had planned a trip to the Mississippi for Spring Break, and I really needed the break. I have switched my attention to almost non-stop writing when I am not working, and just finished a novel. Now that I finished it, I am at loose ends until I start something new, though I do still have a lot of editing to do.
My output will likely be very prolific during this time. It would be better for me if my digital reader had not decided to quit working, but B&N is promising me a refund, since I only had this one 5 weeks, and another is supposed to be on the way. (I don’t read digitally very often, but I do like to play a couple of games on it!) I can’t get to the B&N store, because it is in Lincoln, which is on lockdown, and I wouldn’t have gone at this time anyway. I don’t think a 2 hour trip to buy a new reader is essential travel.
I too work at home and I love it BUT but but but I also like to go out whenever I need a change, and I like to do that sometimes by hopping on a bus and going to a distant part of the city to look at their views instead of mine for an hour or two. Of COURSE it’s a first world problem, that was my point – that’s why I slap myself and tell myself to shut up. But I find it interesting and worth thinking about that it’s not “shut up and repair the bomb damage” or “shut up and grow potatoes,” it’s just shut up. We can’t do anything. That’s different from previous crises. (Somewhat different. Actually people on the home front did have that feeling to a considerable extent.)
Also…it’s not just a matter of personal “cheering up.” There is an awful lot of tragic needless dying going on, some of which could have been prevented if the monster hadn’t fucked up so badly. There is also a hell of a lot of suffering going on: people thrown out of work, parents with small children and nowhere to take them for exercise and play, people mourning their dead, people who fear their futures, and on and on. In a way I don’t really even want to “cheer up,” because it would be so callous. I want to not kvetch about everything, even to myself, but I don’t exactly want to feel perky.
I’m also in that boat… most of the plant is on furlough (which will probably turn into layoffs pretty quickly) and I’ve lost my overtime so significantly decreased my income… but then again I do still have a full-time job which is better than many.
But then again I’m so “essential” that I’m stuck congregating with a bunch of disease vectors because murder machines are still “essential” in a time when no one should be fighting anyone.
On a personal level I’m doing just fine, which of course creates a vague sense of guilt. Whenever I’m having the “how are you doing” conversation with someone (and there are a lot of those these days!), I have to start with the disclaimer that “obviously I’m concerned with the whole situation…. but personally I’m doing sort of… well?”
I’m not cheery about the situation by any means, but some levity can help us take a break from the bleak reality of it. I’m also in a fortunate situation as I can classify my work as involving ‘discretionary travel’, so maybe some vague sense of guilt there too, Screechy, but then again I worked very hard to get where I am. I find myself adjusting my perspective pretty frequently, but that’s more of a habit than anything external.
My life under shelter-in-place is virtually identical to my life without it, though with fewer trips to the store and a newly retired husband. I postponed a trip to Jamaica, and may lose it entirely if things don’t improve noticeably by November. The fish in the horse trough in the basement may have to wait a long time to go into the koi pond. If it doesn’t happen at all this year, they’ll get so bored, and I’ll feel bad for them. Not really nightmare conditions. First world inconveniences.
I’ve been realizing that having a chronic condition with increasing disability has a strange sort of compensation, in that when I consider the possibility that the pandemic may mean that life in the future will be different, with fewer options and less freedom, I think “well, yeah — I already knew that.”
As others have said, it’s others I worry about.
twiliter, Screechy, I definitely have that sense, too. We were having a (computer) meeting yesterday, and most of my colleagues are working longer and longer hours to convert their classes to distance. Because of the way I had my classes set up, the conversion is not that time consuming for me, and I felt guilty hearing them talk about it. But…in the same sense, I did do all that work, and those long hours, I just did it several years ago as I converted my classes to a format where most of them have an online version. The main issue I have to deal with is labs (and a new theatre class, where we are having to change our play production to a radio play, leaving me struggling with an unfamiliar format…oh, well, new opportunities for me to expand my horizons, right?)
But as someone who suffers from extreme anxiety and depression, conditions that have been terminal in the past, I am definitely worried about what will happen as this stretches longer and I can’t get those respites that have kept me sane. I am writing more, and that helps, and my therapist is doing telehealth, but I’m already feeling it. And that isn’t “first world problems”, at least not in my opinion, because it isn’t like feeling upset about my first world life being turned upside down, it is a chronic medical condition that infects people all over the world. And we don’t really seem to know what causes it.
I thought I was coming down with COVID the other night because of some extreme weightiness in my chest that went beyond what I experienced with bronchitis. Then I thought, oh, no, maybe I’m having a heart attack, and the local hospital had just closed down to emergency visitors (call the EMTs? I guess…). Then my husband said it sounded like what he felt with his pulmonary embolisms. I think I finally have decided it was a panic attack.
First world problems or not, they are problems. And we have to deal with them. I definitely feel sympathy with my students, who are dealing with no babysitters, the worry about losing their work, having to adjust to an unfamiliar method of schooling, etc. But if you think about it, those are first world problems, too, so maybe first world problems can be a lot more severe than we often seem to want to admit.
Ikn, that’s not a first world problem you describe, that’s a legitimate concern. People complaining that they can’t go clubbing or visit Disneyland, or have every store and restaurant open with completely packed shelves, things like that. Not being able to get the help you need when the medical community is overwhelmed is definitely not a first world problem! I realize that recreation is important to mental health, firsthand as it happens also, depression in my case, and as much as I would rather stay home because of that, it’s not good that alternatives aren’t available for a while, but not the end of the world like this thing has been for some of us. I’m pleased that you finished your novel, I hope there is a link here in the future when it’s ready to go out, so we know where to find it! I’m a little envious too, I’ve always wanted to write. :)
Well fortunately no one has ever accused me of being deficient in the levity department, including the unsuitable or inappropriate kind.
Indubitably. :D
I know what you mean and what I am missing are the little treats – buying special bread from a little bakery near my work, and good tea from the EcoLarder, not to mention going to a café or pub or the cinema. The blitz it is not – however much our absurd media in the UK keep evoking World War II spirit.
I’m working from home at my dull admin job, which is now harder to do because of inadequate equipment, and I miss the chat and buzz of the office, not to mention the coffee machine. Half of the admin staff have been put on furlough, but to my annoyance I’m not one and have to pick up other people’s work (though there hasn’t been an awful lot so far).
But any complaint I make is prefaced by, I know I’m lucky – and list the luckiness – having a job, a small garden, a comfortable flat to myself (my flatmate went home to his family) and all the social media and entertainment. My life isn’t that much different – I usually spend my time reading and writing, and my voluntary work for my cycling activist group is answering emails and posting on social media. I often go on solitary cycles – now I can’t go very far and instead of heading into the countryside I cycle round the streets of the suburbs and the city, which are wondrously quiet without the traffic and I have the pleasure of seeing children cycling along main arteries. The air is cleaner, and it’s much quieter without the traffic noise.
So when I see on Facebook an acquaintance cooped up with their autistic kid who can’t understand why they aren’t going to the city farm and is having melt downs I don’t want to complain. However listing why you can’t complain really annoys this woman who doesn’t want to hear how comparatively good you are having it.
In the UK, however bad our government is, there has been a lot of voluntary work, so people do feel they can do something – “do their bit” – in shopping and delivering medicines for the vulnerable. I was in touch with a group about a housebound friend and got offers of help.
It’s not just that people are kind – they are glad to be doing something and finding some purpose in their locked-down lives.
Rebecca Solnit talks about this in her latest column (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/what-coronavirus-can-teach-us-about-hope-rebecca-solnit)
Solnit closes the analogy by saying that the business of everyone getting out and about is a sort of war on things like the environment and basic humanity. Right now, pollution is falling in cities, wildlife is recovering in some places (there are dolphins in Venice!) and strangers are being kind to each other. This is all happening in the silence of the guns but with the sense that it’s not going to last, that things will eventually lurch back into gear and we’ll all get back to the practice of systematically destroying the planet and harming other people as much as possible.
But it doesn’t have to be like that. Solint points out that disasters have often been a trigger for significant positive change in societies. A crisis is a crossroads and there is nothing inevitable about which branch we take afterwards. While those currently in power seek to drag back the Old Ways as comprehensively as possible, we don’t have to let them. In some cases, the former status quo might prove impossible. It turned out that working at home works, that caring about the safety of employees isn’t stupid, that enormous change can happen very quickly and enormous sums of money can be redistributed with the slash of a pen.
So that’s something we can be doing. We can be shutting up and starting to think about better ways to put societies back together from the bottom up. We can re-evaluate what’s important, what’s not inevitable and what power for change we really have.
I know, I know, that’s a lot of optimism coming from me.
To counteract the optimism a little, there’s always this: https://politics.theonion.com/gop-urges-end-of-quarantine-for-lifeless-bipedal-automa-1842461351
To counteract the optimism even more, much virtual ink has been spent comparing the steps taken against the corona crisis to the steps not taken against the far worse climate crisis. The current pandemic has shown that societies are indeed capable of drastic measures – even ones that are bad for business – in response to a crisis. But this just goes to highlight in even more glaring contrast the degree to which climate change is not treated as a real crisis by any authorities anywhere in the industrial world.
Incidentally, I have finally gotten around to reading The Shock Doctrine, so what could be more fitting than the current attempts at exploiting the current state of system shock and paralysis to revive the Keystone XL. As Bill McKibben puts it:
The essence of Disaster Capitalism for You in a nutshell.
I was hearing yesterday that the truck drivers are saying the supply chain is going to collapse soon. The truckers are finding it difficult to find open places to eat and go to the bathroom, and there is worry that their convenience store stops are exposing them so they will start to get sick. Then goods will stop moving. Those won’t be first world problems; they will be supply problems much more like what poor countries experience – the lack of ability to obtain food and necessities.
Even for those of us in agricultural states, that will be a problem, because most of our production is non-food related. Our corn tends to go to the sugar and ethanol industries, as well as being sent for cattle feed. Even the crops that are grown for food are inadequate to supply our needs. This could make WWII rationing look like luxury.