I have to remind myself of this every so often.
Community is a good thing, but I can feel selfish for wanting it right now.
Even if others are craving the same thing.
It is an essential part of the human experience to be able to connect and know you are not alone.
In Genesis, Adam dealt with this as the only one of his kind - and it was a world that was good and he was very good in his Creator's eyes?
Was it a miscalculation or error on God's part to leave His very good creation as one of a kind and incomplete? I certainly don't know.
But what I do know is that I tend to value things more when I recognize how greatly I desire them in my lack of them.
In Plato's Republic, it was noted as a political truth that the citizens grow used to a standard of living progressing to beyond their ability of their society to sustain through their resources, so they would rather go to war with another country for new resources than scale back their lifestyle.
It is a troubling lens through which to view world history.
I am more fond of Niccolo Machiavelli's political work The Prince, not because I advocate his theories of staying in power, but the motivating factor behind him writing it. He was so passionate about political communities and, being exiled, longed to return to them enough to offer this as a bizarre olive branch to those in power if only he could rejoin them.
It did not succeed, but it speaks to a longing of community and interests. Sometimes those driving factors have unintended consequences and side effects. Things intended for good were turned to ill purposes. Perhaps these ill times can also be turned to healthy purposes.
Currently, with this time of recommended isolation, there have been growing pains to adjust and adapt to this new schedule and standard of living.
It fits differently, providing unfamiliar gaps and restrictions on my time. Some others have discovered small joys in exploring these gaps to see how far they reach. Others have despaired at the constrictions on areas where they enjoyed freedom to exercise. On a day to day basis, I oscillate between the two - it depends on my focus and attention. It is easy to forget myself and my complaints when I am focused on something else. But in isolation, I have to deal with myself more frequently than in the company of others where I can place my attention externally.
It is so analytical and cold to state it in such terms. But it is good to be able to support others and allow them to support me. It is a give and take relationship, and in the absence of my having a choice whether to engage or disengage, it is unsettling.
Free will and self-control are two factors which have haunted me in my life, and my acknowledgement of their weight of responsibility has propelled me forward - self flagellation to provide momentum to a flagellum of an idea.
I admit that it might be a grossly simple way to frame it, but I could have 143 other options which would also be a gross way of explanation.
I don't hate myself, and I don't want to complain or berate myself into a self-destructive spiral. But there is a difference between choosing to be alone for a time and being strongly told that I will isolate for a time. From the outcome, it has the same effect, but for the object, it is internal forces or external forces of pressure and it feels different to give time to personal expansion than to be told to compress and hold myself from risk of contamination.
These are disparate thoughts in a desperate time. I am grateful to be surviving, but acknowledge that things can and should be better. I hope we all learn from this experience, but not everything has a greater lesson or purpose. It takes time and memory to try to sort out sense and narrative. I have some time at the moment to reflect, but the mirror has a tendency to get features flip-flopped and see only the short sighted present and a long way into the past rather any good view of what the future holds.
I don't know what the future holds. I am not a futurist. But I hope I survive to see it when it comes.
