All shots this week (bar monday) and today were taken on the great union canal which runs right across London on my daily allocated walk. I always used to use it as an escape from the carnage on street level and most of the time it just feels like it normally would down there. When you are walking along the canalside and the weather is glorious, which it has been, it always feels like you are on holiday. And that hasn’t really changed and then you see someone in a face mask and you go, oh shit, that actually happened, that wasn’t just a bizarre nightmare.
Am finding I am constantly flitting between forgetting and remembering. The former feels like a mind state designed for self-preservation, the latter impossible to shut out completely. But you gotta keep it at bay as much as you can. 24/7 Corona will eat you up and think you need to dip out as much as you dip in to survive and maintain sanity.
I have massively scaled down how much I look at the news and have skipped my morning skim through the headlines and that seems to be helping as now I don’t start everyday with despair and rage. I tend to check the news now only early evening as this thing is clearly settling in for the long haul. And so should we. We need to drop down to Def Corona 3.
Why I’m also detaching from the feed is that It feels like the majority of the reporting is now focused mostly on two entirely redundant things, the past and the future. Half of it seems to be about what went wrong, who is to blame etc but that is all now utterly moot. And so is any forward projection as to what is going to happen..because they just don’t fucking know.
And predictions are changing on a daily basis so most of it becomes redundant overnight anyway so you don’t need to be tuned into every miniscule development. Your future self is going to have to deal with whatever shit storm it will end up being down the line but you don’t need to put your brain there yet. Worrying about all conceivable eventualities will not make you more prepared, it will just eat you up. The old saying goes: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” but that should be updated to “If you want to make Corona laugh…”
So with the past and future both ruled out as irrelevant that just leaves the present. And that is where your mind should be anyway. Living in the moment sounds like new age bullshit but it has always been the key to contentment and happiness and that was never truer than now.. Your day today is all that matters. If you get into bed at the end of tonight and nothing terrible has happened to you or anyone you know, chalk it up as a win. And do the same tomorrow, and the next day and so on…
wow, I can’t even begin to imagine how fox are reporting this…”and the brave and mighty Prince Donald, cometh down from his white castle and slay the Corona monster and the people rejoiced..all hail Prince Donald, for he is our saviour! And they all lived happily ever after”
I agree about shutting down the news streams. They are full of conjecture. The morning starts with “If this happens then this will certainly happen” and by evening we’ve had a chat from one of the boffins who says that well… we think this (or that) but we don’t know. I think the BBC is playing a blinder – guardian is letting itself down by being too partisan. Peace comes with disconnection and maybe the odd glance at the BBC. Although for a laugh I do like to look at Fox.