Virus, internet and life

What a bizarre time to be alive.

Everywhere you look, there is something about this stupid virus – more of the dread about a disease that’s looming around like an invisible alien, whose whereabouts are unpredictable. Some say it is a symptom of a larger malaise, a capitalist malfunction, an apocalypse prediction come true. For radical optimists it is a one time chance to redeem our luck with the earth.

Our days of social distancing are made possible by the availability of fast internet at our fingertips. Thousands of people have migrated overnight to make work-from-home a success, taking digital technology for granted. Yet for the first time, the ‘mainstream’ may. be feeling, and realising partly how may be like to be under perpetual lockdown. How is it like to have no internet for months.

The constant play run by social media into the brains of friends and family and in turn by the brains of friends and family into social media back creating a jarring loop to have our thoughts scarred, our hopes stalled and our economic agenda turned around on its head.

It’s tiring rather than relaxing. A forced slowdown is uncomfortable as it challenges our urban consumerist millennial life that romanticises being busy among those of us who cannot imagine a working day without a visit to Starbucks, a weekend socialising at bars or at a house party, or wheeling away at work because the cool politics of hard work.

We are forced to face who we really are – simple, organic humans with enormous capacity to learn, be creative and be resilient. It’s like we had put on layers of make up on our real selves until a sudden pandemic jerk shook us off our complacent bubbles and made us face ourselves in the mirror under chlorine sharp lights.

The days of self isolation and quarantine are spent figuring out how to make the most of the self isolation and quarantine and expressing it endlessly but never making anything more than an average off day at home would be like. A day like this is driven by the need to show off on Instagram what you did than what you actually did. The pressure to make something out of the work from home arrangement is immense.

Globalisation anyway led us to live distant lives whether across continents or under the same roof, spending leisure on our phones and binging on Netflix and its several new cousins in the new industry where you pay to waste your time. What happens when online swipes cannot transform into random meet ups, and people are forced to wait and talk to the same person. It’s kind of strange to having to wait for it, to be patient, to give things more time than they seem to need. It’s almost scary to suddenly having enough time to spend with the same set of persons around.

This ‘us’,  is but just a tiny percentage of the population. For most of us who rely on their real social networks, social distancing is either a punishment or a luxury. Ask my maid or the person who sells toys in local trains. Even if the trains are not shut down, who would he sell his toys to?

The eerie ghost town effect is blanketing the social and emotional livelihood of people that this pandemic has brought upon. Not just a public health issue, a global emergency or a non traditional security issue, but it’s a mental curfew that helplessly watches moral witch hunting of those affected. The casualty are primarily the resourceless, the less aware, the depressed and the suicidal.

Pandemics can kill people without even touching them. Bloodbaths are passé.