Things we lost in the fire (of COVID-19)

When COVID-19 entered our live like bull in a china shop, it has created a lot of pain in a number of ways. First and foremost, all those who went through a long and painful convalescence, or even passed away, with the subsequent loss for their families and friends. But they are not alone in this: the pandemic has forced pretty much everyone of us to re-think our lives under a completely different scenario, and that have been difficult for many people.

The first aspect of the pain is the actual need to redesign our lives. The main reason why everybody ends up establishing certain amount of routines is that they make life much easier. Thinking about the next thing to do is hard work so we have evolved to work out of routine as much as possible, to free mental resources and energy for those task that really need them. And having to figure out what to do with the kids when they stayed away for school, or how to get to the office for work, or even finding a place at home to set up shop are all very taxing exercises that we did not ask for. And the task comes with the additional problem that the whole world is changing around us at the same time: not only are we forced to give up on using the train and driving to work instead, but also everybody else is facing similar changes, so even rush-hour patterns, opening hours of shops, etc. have been changing, because the redesign was not difficult enough as it was.

But once the first rush of the crisis is over and we have mostly re-established a workable routine, we get hit by the second wave of pain, rooted on the things that, like in the song by Bastille, were lost in the fire. Many small uses and practices, which we took for granted but actually built the skeleton of our lives, have become unfeasible or outright forbidden by the crisis. A walk in the park, a visit to a museum, meeting friends in a pub after work, having lunch with your parents on Sunday, even discussing with your boss in the office. They were all small pieces that contributed to our live and filled it with content and meaning, but we were not fully aware. And once the fire had ravaged them, we could only look into the ashes and wonder why did we not enjoy them more while we had them, and when (if ever) we will get them back. But eventually everybody grew accustomed to the new normality and the pain subsided.

Photo: PxHere

This gloomy rant comes on occasion of the thesis defense of one of the ladies in the PhD group. After a questionable rehearsal a few days ago, this morning she made a brilliant presentation and got great marks for it. And after the presentation she had organized an informal socially-distanced gathering, where I had a chance, for the first time in almost six months, to engage in small talk, take an interest in my fellow PhD students, discuss my interests and my research, etc. It was so nice and exciting to be there, those people that I had only met in the conference hall for a fairly formal meeting suddenly had a life and friends, some knew each other from the undergraduate school, others had recently moved in! Now the pain of the loss is relived, because we get this glimmer of normality, only to go back to being constrained by the new norms again. I can only sympathize with all those who are tired of the containment measures, but I have to defend that this is the only sensible solution for now. Going out on the streets, in the parks, the restaurants, the music festivals, can give you a temporary sense of freedom but will only make the situation be worse and last longer.

Karen and I still try to limit our outings to the bare minimum. Most of the time one of us goes alone to do the shopping, cook many more meals than we used to and, whenever we do not cook, it is always take-out, to limit the contact with strangers. The situation is still painful and it is still going to last a bit, but we can cope with it and one day we will remember this as a hard, but interesting, learning experience.

I am now struggling with the programming assignment of my online course, which is giving me a seemingly valid result, but not quite. I hope I will manage to crack it today before I head to bed. Enjoy the weekend.