The Quarantined Self

Look upon this as an opportunity. What this forced quarantine offers each of us is the chance to turn off the background music and see our life movie, this time without the score: no more orchestral accompaniments to color our emotions; no more special effects to distract us from our essence.  

There are no right answers. There are no judgments aside from those that bubble up from within. The opportunity lies with the elimination, or at least the dialing down, of the usual societal constructs. Such liberation. How we respond to this societal break may tell us something about who we are, even who we have always been. It's just us and the mirror.

Some may begin their reckoning by tapping into the wisdom of the Stoics, a subject we discussed a few weeks ago (MM 2/24/20/ Stoicism). Perhaps we start with It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters (Epictetus) as we nudge our attention towards the things that are actually under our control.  We may then embrace humility with the recognition that How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life (Marcus Aurelius) and remind ourselves to remain present in times of great distractions as The whole future lies in uncertainty; live immediately (Seneca). In the end there comes the understanding we are the sole source of our emotions as it's not the events, but the stories we tell ourselves about such events, that create our emotions as in The Happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts (Aurelius). 

Easier said than done, of course, in these challenging times. We may ask ourselves what can we learn. While isolation may not be man's the natural state, essentially being that of a social animal, we may discover through this self-quarantined state where we actually stand on that communal spectrum. Add to that the stress of  financial hardship, real or imagined (again, that being, in part, the story we tell ourselves). 

Couples or families sequestered together in the crucible of shared quarantine may come to discover things about one another not otherwise evident in the comfort of normalcy. The world of hardships offers a proving ground, testing the level of true love, caring, compassion, and even compatibility. The point is that these uncertain times provide each of us the opportunity to better understand both ourselves and others at a much deeper level.

One's need for external structure now becomes manifest. One columnist dismissed the notion of forced isolation as providing an opportunity for deeper learning when she sniffed, "They can lock me down, but they can't make me read Proust," suggesting the whole superannuated Protestant work ethic is no longer applicable. Other more sober-minded observers see opportunity where others see only distress. Take the measure of essayist Lance Morrow:  Click Here

Inspiring philosophy indeed but then along comes an equally impressive reaction from within our own community i.e. having shared the above essay with a few amongst us, it became clear Mr. Morrow had little to teach our very own octogenarian member Bob Davis who privately responded with the following (reproduced, in part, with his permission):   

"I do Jia's Yoga at least once a week and aim to do it more often but I am outdoors nearly every day going through my squats and walking. For the past week I have been walking to the end of the cul de sac and back. I try to manage the property with Rani's help and occasionally my handyman but I try to be the handyman. The spring garden is started and I have hauled mulch in for both the spring and summer gardens. There is always something to do. I have furloughed my house cleaner for the duration, with pay, so I am doing the cleaning to my satisfaction. I was not up to it this week so Rani took over and did a really professional job, which wore her out. She is permitted to go to work three days a week because the lady she helps has health issue. Sanitary standards are observed there as well as here so I feel as safe and secure as I can. I am most proud of my reading studies. I started on the literary world of Washington Irving which led me to Fenimore Cooper. Then I took up a book I have kept which was a critique of American prose master by a prominent 19th Century critic. He compared Cooper with Scott so I am now studying Scott's Ivanhoe and getting into the English 12th century with great relish."

The Stoic label may come close to the mark but let's just leave Bob as an example of A Life Well Lived.