“GO HOME, YOU FOOLS,” I want to shout at them. Three days into a state-ordered social distancing, and these people can’t manage to find ways to amuse themselves at home.
I’ve also heard endless whining about the challenges of working from home, as though the blessing of not having to put on pants and join the daily commute on a germ-ridden bus has gone completely over the heads of these unimaginative cogs.
Complaining that you have been released from the chain tying you to an office, five days a week, eight hours a day, and no longer have to suffer cubicle life is a privilege only the dull and mentally insufficient could manage. Meanwhile, countless people have no employment at all, with no future prospects, and no knowledge of how badly this situation will devastate their industries and opportunities for survival.
Of all of this, the under-40s have been the worst. A stream of mental-health-themed posts have flooded my social media feeds: how to cope with “symptoms of cabin fever”? What of my anxiety?! How can I fill my time, now that an external force is no longer dictating the parameters of my life? The lack of self-sufficiency astounds me, as someone who spends every day alone in her small apartment, trying to learn as much as I can, produce quality work, and take care of my health — physical, emotional, and mental.
I feel blessed, every day, by my freedom, despite not owning a home or having any savings or financial security to speak of. Why are so many unable to manage being alone with their own selves and minds? Why are capable human beings so incapable of productivity, when left to their own devices? The panic in the face of a little adversity troubles me.
I do understand that many, many people will suffer terribly from this outbreak. And that many of us are actually, really, alone. We are social creatures, so this is nothing to scoff at. But my point is that it is also impermanent, and it is something we will get through.
What the world will look like when we recover from this will depend so much on the choices we make as individuals, right now — as well as the decisions made by our government. And instead of doing the bleeding obvious — staying home, strictly distancing ourselves from others, and thinking of the community beyond our own families and desires — we are hanging out at the park with our friends and their kids, and behaving as though the true threat to our lives lies on our couches, as if to re-watch The Sopranos or read a book will send us into a pit of depression, so dark we cannot reemerge.
On Friday’s episode of “Making Sense,” Sam Harris explained that “this is an emergency in which the most effective contribution you can make, to your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others, is to stay home”. And those of us who can — who are privileged to be able to work from home; who are not the grocery store clerks, the healthcare workers, the bus drivers — are not. Those of us in a position to be considerate of others, are choosing not to be.
Humans, for all their genius and capability, appear to be rather useless, unable to take direction, unwilling to make rational choices, and unfit for a level of hardship that is nothing compared to what their ancestors suffered. “Stay home,” should not be a hard ask. Do not hoard food, toilet paper or hand sanitiser, as it is unnecessary and harmful, should not be either.
“Be mindful, be grateful, be considerate, be strong and be creative” are some other achievable asks I would add.
If you can’t count your blessings during a time like this, perhaps you don’t deserve those blessings at all. And if you cannot view this pandemic as a reminder of what is valuable and important in life, and an opportunity to consider a better social and economic model, perhaps you don’t deserve those things either.
We are lucky to be such over-privileged narcissists, but that luck is wasted on us: the greedy, self-interested masses, clinging to things that are not real, material only until they slip away, and you are left with nothing but a weak and uninspired mind; a fake anxiety disorder (resolvable not through lengthy self-indulgent social media posts, but by going for a walk) and a closet full of toilet paper.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe