Hi,
Lockdown has isolated, then magnified all the things we normally manage to cushion ourselves from. A troubled relationship, tight finances or health problems suddenly become inescapable. Yet, amid all these frustrations that most of us aren’t immune against, lockdown can throw up weird epiphanies.
Before I go on, let me cast a big caveat around this entire newsletter. Lockdown experiences may seem universal, but they vary dramatically based on individual economic circumstances, mental health and social profile. Against that backdrop, the now common solidarity cheer of how "we are all in this together" sounds trite. We are absolutely not all in this together. I can’t imagine a less "all in it together" experience than a pandemic from which only white collar workers and those with the privilege to work from home can shelter.
That’s why it feels wrong even to type this: lockdown, to me, is starting to reach a sort of zen hum.
Many of us, including me, feel more stressed about certain things, but less anxious in the absolute. I realised that I don’t strictly enjoy a lot of the socialising I do. Knowing that I don’t need to feel guilty about cancelling social engagements can feel like a huge relief. Then there’s the giddy freedom of a whole week stretching ahead with no looming commitments. This isn’t the respite of an introvert; it’s relaxation felt by someone who had fallen into an unquestioning pattern of not being able to say "no".
I initially went through a period of anxious resistance to these new unpunctuated days. But that was soon replaced by a calm, clear drop in anxiety. The doctor Farrah Jalal, wrote that some of her patients with mental health conditions have reported experiencing "a sense of profound relief, more energy, and an improvement in [their] anxiety".
I grew up in a quiet, strict family, and have been making up for it ever since. Life, mobility and friends are a gift, and every time I had the chance to enjoy them, I took it. Now it’s been taken away, I find I miss it very little. Or at least much less than I expected to. The lockdown shows how terrifyingly quickly humans adapt to new conditions and file old ones away as obsolete. Did we ever go out or just hang out?
Religions advocate regular pauses and periods of abstinence for a reason. It’s an old cliche that withdrawing into a state of isolation is good for the soul. But cleansing our minds should be a voluntary experience we seek – not a state that’s imposed upon us in moments of adversity. No one has so far suggested going to prison as a restorative experience.
And yet, given how few of us would ever have the time (and luxury) for a long period of reflection and reset, maybe the lockdown, among all the other noise and anxieties, is something we’ll look back on one day and see as a gift.
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