It might sound a little dark, but there are aspects of the pandemic and corresponding government response that I have actually enjoyed. I don’t mind being home a lot, in fact I do it naturally and by preference. Even before the pandemic, I only really left the house to 1) church, 2) work, 3) grocery shop. Being confined doesn’t really burn me out. I feel exhausted, more because of what I have to endure from our political and media class than anything else. They (along with social media/tech) seem the biggest obstacles to happiness in this world, so far as I can tell. Vincent Waddelove has more to say below, which I agree with completely.
Maybe it is because my life is somewhat different than yours (I don’t have a spouse or children), but I don’t see my house as a prison. In fact, if someone drew a 20-mile radius around my home town and said, “you may not leave this circle so long as you live”, I would probably be relieved more than anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I have traveled, seen the world, mostly because it was necessary for work or in order to make something of myself (not always successfully, I might add). And I am thankful for most of those experiences and memories. But, if I am being honest, I could have done without any of it. Seeing the world has made me a lot more provincial than I was as a child. I feel like I have seen what there is to see, am content with the thing I was given at birth, and don’t really need to see any more.
Giving up work is symptomatic of something deeper: I think it’s brought on by the fact that we have spent 15 months living in a world of constant and obsessive speculation. The media never reports on what has happened any more, it reports on what is going to happen.
And that’s the problem. We’ve spent years living for the future, only to find that the future can be stolen from us in an instant by something totally out of our ability to influence (pick a scapegoat, virus or government the result is the same). If I’m honest, when I pick up my phone in the morning, I’m not really interested in what happened yesterday. When I had Twitter I wanted to see what new controversy had blown up overnight and would therefore consume today’s twittersphere. When I look at my work calendar, I am looking at what the day ahead of me involves. When I look at the news I’m looking to see what madness the government will inflict on me today / this week. Etc.
The funny thing is that we need some thought of the future to bring out the best in us. We need the knowledge that in just 2 more weeks we’ll have a week off work and be able to relax. That’s what keeps us going. It’s just that in today’s world we’re more obsessed with the speculation than ever before, and for the last 15 months there’s been no break, no freedom from the shackles of drudgery. Even when you’re on holiday, the shopping still requires you to do all the same stupid virus related stuff and wear your mask and so on.
I think burnout is just an unhealthy obsession with the future, brought on by significant uncertainty about what it might hold. The solution is to live for today; to ignore what Pope Francis might be planning for the traditional Mass, to ignore what latest ignominies the government may impose in the cause of “slowing the spread”. And at the end of today, sit down and review the good, the bad and the ugly. And then enter tomorrow without speculation about what it may bring.
I think this is right. It is something I, and others in my family, struggle with also. When I have enough discipline to turn off the news for 5-7 days and then I check back in, I find that it is almost as if I never left. People are still fighting about all the same things and nothing in particular has happened.
I don't think that it is any coincidence that the kind of neuroses that we experience today, which as far as I can tell have no real precedent in human society, arise along with 1) the press, 2) mass literacy. Individual humans aren't built to shoulder all the burdens of all the world. We have to learn to circumscribe our own existence, to make our lives smaller.
What the world needs, is to drop the idea that whatever is wrong with you is your fault, and that, if you try hard enough, you can fix it. Hell, all I see is a "community" of isolated individuals; scale that up to a nation, and you've got a mess. Happy belated 4th of July.
It might sound a little dark, but there are aspects of the pandemic and corresponding government response that I have actually enjoyed. I don’t mind being home a lot, in fact I do it naturally and by preference. Even before the pandemic, I only really left the house to 1) church, 2) work, 3) grocery shop. Being confined doesn’t really burn me out. I feel exhausted, more because of what I have to endure from our political and media class than anything else. They (along with social media/tech) seem the biggest obstacles to happiness in this world, so far as I can tell. Vincent Waddelove has more to say below, which I agree with completely.
Maybe it is because my life is somewhat different than yours (I don’t have a spouse or children), but I don’t see my house as a prison. In fact, if someone drew a 20-mile radius around my home town and said, “you may not leave this circle so long as you live”, I would probably be relieved more than anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I have traveled, seen the world, mostly because it was necessary for work or in order to make something of myself (not always successfully, I might add). And I am thankful for most of those experiences and memories. But, if I am being honest, I could have done without any of it. Seeing the world has made me a lot more provincial than I was as a child. I feel like I have seen what there is to see, am content with the thing I was given at birth, and don’t really need to see any more.
Giving up work is symptomatic of something deeper: I think it’s brought on by the fact that we have spent 15 months living in a world of constant and obsessive speculation. The media never reports on what has happened any more, it reports on what is going to happen.
And that’s the problem. We’ve spent years living for the future, only to find that the future can be stolen from us in an instant by something totally out of our ability to influence (pick a scapegoat, virus or government the result is the same). If I’m honest, when I pick up my phone in the morning, I’m not really interested in what happened yesterday. When I had Twitter I wanted to see what new controversy had blown up overnight and would therefore consume today’s twittersphere. When I look at my work calendar, I am looking at what the day ahead of me involves. When I look at the news I’m looking to see what madness the government will inflict on me today / this week. Etc.
The funny thing is that we need some thought of the future to bring out the best in us. We need the knowledge that in just 2 more weeks we’ll have a week off work and be able to relax. That’s what keeps us going. It’s just that in today’s world we’re more obsessed with the speculation than ever before, and for the last 15 months there’s been no break, no freedom from the shackles of drudgery. Even when you’re on holiday, the shopping still requires you to do all the same stupid virus related stuff and wear your mask and so on.
I think burnout is just an unhealthy obsession with the future, brought on by significant uncertainty about what it might hold. The solution is to live for today; to ignore what Pope Francis might be planning for the traditional Mass, to ignore what latest ignominies the government may impose in the cause of “slowing the spread”. And at the end of today, sit down and review the good, the bad and the ugly. And then enter tomorrow without speculation about what it may bring.
I think this is right. It is something I, and others in my family, struggle with also. When I have enough discipline to turn off the news for 5-7 days and then I check back in, I find that it is almost as if I never left. People are still fighting about all the same things and nothing in particular has happened.
I don't think that it is any coincidence that the kind of neuroses that we experience today, which as far as I can tell have no real precedent in human society, arise along with 1) the press, 2) mass literacy. Individual humans aren't built to shoulder all the burdens of all the world. We have to learn to circumscribe our own existence, to make our lives smaller.
Some really good observations here, Vincent. Thank you.
What the world needs, is to drop the idea that whatever is wrong with you is your fault, and that, if you try hard enough, you can fix it. Hell, all I see is a "community" of isolated individuals; scale that up to a nation, and you've got a mess. Happy belated 4th of July.