Ridikulus
« If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person. »
- Seneca
Everything is party politics nowadays right? From what you eat to how you breathe, to how you deal with life-changing events. Regarding the pandemic we’re all having to deal with, you can be a fear monger or a murderer. A sheep or a freedom fighter. Most see themselves as wisely in the middle though that can mean a wild variety of things. Now let’s talk about that fear though. I can honestly say I haven’t felt afraid since the beginning of this pandemic. Not of the virus at least. Now, being a healthy person with no comorbidity, living in a country with good-enough public health care, not in poverty and with a job I can perfectly do from home, I am privileged enough not to be subject to the immense stress (and actual danger) this can represent in terms direct personal health and finances. Yet the same can be said of most of the people around me who seem to get very distressed with the pandemic and health regulations - leading them to sometimes take unnecessary risks that end up putting in danger… well people who are less privileged than they are. What gives?
I’m gonna argue that hope and optimism have been some of the greatest factors of stress on a big chunk of the population. And time has come to consider stoicism.
Back in early March it finally hit me. My wife had been repeating to me that we were facing something serious for a while by then - mind you, she knew - but it only hit me in early March. That’s when I realized that (1) the situation in Italy was serious, (2) there was absolutely no reason to believe it wouldn’t reach our country and (3) the growth of the pandemic was exponential. We all know roughly what exponential means but we tend not to exactly grasp it. That’s perfectly normal: it’s unfathomable. So one sleepless night I turned to simple math to show me what this really meant in concrete terms: what would be the growth in a week, in two weeks, in a month… And it hit me. We were facing serious trouble. Add in the flow of information about the situation and it quickly became clear - as it seemed to be for most everybody at the time - that a vaccine wouldn’t be available for at least a year and that’s maybe being a bit naively optimistic. So my family and I prepared for change. We had no idea what was ahead. All we knew was that there would be change and that the direct change would probably last upwards of a year, a year and a half.
What changed for us? Well first we accepted that our lives were going to be a little bit different for a while, like everybody had to when lockdowns were put in place, except we expected that change to be the norm for longer than the initial measures. Then we accepted that that meant having to live more in the present, without getting too frustrated of not being able to plan ahead much. That’s just a different way to live, some of it is not fun (no concerts anymore!), some of it is sad (no hugs with grandma!), some of it is just… well interesting. That’s life. I’d argue, this is what living is like: stuff gets thrown your way and you try to make the best of it. Can’t change that, but we can change our perspective towards it. For instance, this is an incredible opportunity to learn to work together. Think of the example we can set for our children, when it’s never been easier to save lives.
This is all about accepting to look at reality for what it is and not what we think it should be, or what we would like it to be. That simple thing can take away a lot of stress. The alternative is a staggering anxiety roller-coaster! At every step we have to adapt back and forth, following the whims of contagion and governments. When we finally start relaxing they suddenly talk about a new wave and the possibility for new restrictive measures. We get surprised and disappointed when our plans suddenly get cancelled. And it feels as if this is just taking forever. Will it ever end? All this stress causes fatigue and burns us out. And when we get burnt out we get irrational. We start using the phrase “living with the virus” as a mantra, to look away from our stress, our fear, our fatigue from all this, and just get it over with, one way or another. This is flight reflex at its finest.
In contrast, early acceptance means we’re able to keep living our lives, albeit differently for a while, without stressful fluctuations: we remain in control, we adapt progressively and not in back-and-forth chunks, we can keep looking ahead but enjoy what we have when we have it, without illusions. We can prepare creatively for changes ahead: what fun things can we do for this very special socially distanced Halloween? The kids had enough time to get used to the idea that they were able to cook up ideas for a weirdo Halloween at home with several costumes and characters. No harm done.
« One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. »
- Carl Jung
I guess the main idea is this. Fear doesn’t disappear when you look away. Neither do things we view negatively. That only makes us their slaves. That’s a platitude but, like exponential curves, it’s also a truth that we tend to have a really hard time to integrate.