DAY 13: ECQ

The first thing I came across was this video sent to me by a friend in our Viber Group.

The video featured a discussion of a letter from a teacher from China.  It started out saying that if you felt that you were in the utmost bottom of the pits, then consider the experience of the first group of people who have been locked down since the outbreak of the NCOV19 in the early part of the year.


The message of the letter as discussed by a host and reacted upon by a panel was simple: ACCEPT THE SITUATION.  

Accepting that this is the way that it is and that you cannot do anything about it is the vital first step to be able to survive the next few weeks --- or even months --- before we can even attempt to go back to how it was or how we still want it to be.

Sure. It may be somebody's fault why the world is now in almost a total lock down ... but it is not within our powers to change the course of events.  We can only do so by being responsible and responding to the problem with reason, sobriety and positivism.  No, not positive of the virus but assured that one day this will all end (in whatever way it would conclude) and our concern is how to behave in the here and now.

Now that made a lot of sense.

Are we bored? Miserable? Worried? About to scream out of sheer frustration because we are forced into this quarantine, locked up inside our homes?  

Actually, we do have a choice  We can follow instructions and keep ourselves within the periphery of our homes, our personal spaces. Or we can be mavericks by giving the finger to all the warnings and scream, "YOLO! I am gonna parteeee ..." because you think this health threat is overrated, a product of media misinformation and destroying your calendar of things-to-do in a life already made too short.

Yes, it is your choice to behave or live the way you choose to do as long as you do not harm anybody else along the way.  

You can tell the virus to f--k off, but make sure that if it hits you --- only you will be f--ked off and not anybody else who you have unwittingly dragged into your dance of hedonism. Your YOLO is not necessarily anybody else's war cry.

So take it for what it is worth: we are in this situation, we accept it ... and make the most out of it.

Making the most out of it means not spending each day missing out on things that used to constitute your everyday existence.

I remember about a month or so ago I wished for a few days off.  I was sincerely hoping and praying for just about two or three days of having no appointments, not addressing any problems with the productions or the school. Just give me three days, I said, so I can loll in bed and finish this guilty pleasure novel ... or maybe just watch enough Netflix to numb my brain.  

How would I know God would answer with ... a month?

OK. I have stopped climbing walls out of sheer fear that there is nothing to expect. 

Suddenly all my entries in my Google calendar have become useless.  There are no appointments.  There are no deadlines.  But why is the restlessness there so that thirteen days later I have not yet lolled in bed and read that effing book?!

I realized the problem after hearing a part of what the video had to say.

You don't mind going on a sleep-until-ten-in-the-morning vacation as long as there is something to expect when the down time is over.  You do not mind going into a total chill mode if you know when is the deadline, when this will end ... and when the left of real life will begin.

In this scenario, we don't know. We still do not know when it will be over.

That is one of the ugly facts we have to deal with: we really do not know when it will be all right to go out of our houses, feel safe shaking hands and hugging people ... or braving the hours of traffic again.  We simply do not know and we are only playing this by ear.

The suggestions were clear. Do not make any plans over and beyond what is in front of you.  In some New Age terminology, let it flow.  In the language of my parents, que sera sera.  Whatever will be, will be.  

The problem is that we are not wired like that any more.  Maybe all that tension defining our daily lives of beating deadlines and making schedules and commitments has forbidden us to simply coast along, ride the tide and see where it all goes. We want to know where we should be at a specific time and at a given place.

But we have no choice now.  We are locked down and locked in.

We have no choice but to wait.  Not only do we know the real deadline but what lies ahead.  

One this is for sure: the world will never be the same after this.

We are not only talking about the lives stolen by the virus but the way we perceive our lives and the people who run our nations.  Too many things have been revealed for us to simply "go back to normal"and refer to these early months of 2020 as the time we were all forced to go on house arrest with a threat of life or death.

It seems like we will return to a world that was before and which we ... in our frenzied, confused, chaotic state took away in various acts of violation.  Mother Earth is healing because we have been castigated to go back to our rooms and learn our lessons.  There is no way to glorify the viciousness of this virus.  Yet we also brought these upon ourselves because kept pushing the envelope. We kept tampering and violating the natural order of things so that when we got the backlash we are made to be aware of something so significant: we are powerless. When nature hits back, we are mollified.

Now, in the duration of the quarantine, I step out of my garden each late morning to do an hour of exercise then look at the foliage.

I have lived here for more than thirty years and yet I have never spent so much time in the garden.  

I realized how beautiful the music that the wind chimes make ... or the rustling of the bamboo and palm leaves at that time of the day. Or how blue the skies have become. I see details about what has always been around me but never had the time nor the eyes to see, ears to hear.

I realize that this is a down time I may never have again (not unless another worldwide catastrophe of such proportions recurs) so I must make the most out of it.  I must finally learn to be still, to be quiet ... and to introspect rather than to plan.

Nothing happens by accident.  Everything is part of a much larger design. It is only when we look back at all this that we can realize how and why this had to be in order to become what we should really be.

And, no, I do not miss the traffic.  I am getting used to not being tense about deadlines and deliverables.  And that's a good thing.