Hi,
Depending on where you are in the world, it’s likely that you’re now in some form of self-isolation, or trying to be at least. I know we aren’t all in the privileged position of being able to work from home or take leave, with or without pay, so the degrees of self-isolation will vary.
This week, I’ve been writing and reading a lot about Covid-19. It’s consumed every bit of bandwidth. I wake up in the middle of the night and check my phone for the latest news. I’m incapable of speaking about anything else to friends and family. It feels like a big math problem that the whole world is trying to figure out at the same time. Like we’re standing in front of a board and scribbling things then erasing them. How much time does quarantine last for ideally? Why have some countries such as Germany managed to keep deaths low despite high rates of infection? But the math exercise isn’t producing a result yet, because there are too many variables, too much input and not enough logic to crunch it all coherently.
But as the days of isolation began to take a toll, it also occurred to me that, as I’m fixating on the macro and the morbid — thinking in terms of lives lost and how others could be saved — there’s so much quiet tragedy unfolding in the small details of people’s lives that have been put on hold by the pandemic.
That thought inspires a sort of vertigo, so dizzying is the array of problems people are facing, and so few solutions in sight. There’s the economic, the immediate anxiety of providing for yourself and your family. Then there are the individual stories, arrested, or prolonged and exacerbated, by the pandemic. There are those in abusive relationships who now have even fewer options for safety. Or people halfway through painful physiotherapy, through fertility treatment, through substance abuse withdrawal who have suddenly had their treatments and networks removed. There are those who had just poured their efforts into a degree, only to have studies halted. There are love affairs interrupted, lovers separated, lovers lost.
This is a universal crisis. There’s also never been a moment in human history when we’ve been more connected, more able to empathise with others as we all go through similar experiences. And we’ve never been better positioned to help each other get through it with this same empathy. We have both the technological ability to reach out, and the ability to see into other people’s lives if we just choose to do so. We can donate to relief efforts – anywhere in the world! – send a comforting text, pick up the phone, or video call someone we know might need a little boost.
Fixating on the macro is overwhelming and paralysing, but if we look at the everyday around us, we can all take small actions now, to get us all through it, together. We can start in this very thread underneath this newsletter! Let me know, if you wish, what you think you can do to help, and maybe even how you would like to be helped yourself.
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