More shots this week from Lisbon. As life is on hold it feels somehow appropriate that my photographs are trapped in a moment in time. It’s as if the world has been frozen like that moment in the Matrix when they pause the program. Maybe we are in a computer simulation after all and this is just a glitch in the system so everything has to stop while they fix it. Maybe it’s a software update and once its done we’ll all be shit hot at kung fu.
For the record, I don’t think we are actually in pods hooked up to a giant mainframe being used as human batteries but we are all now technically living in a digital world as the real one is effectively a no-go area. And we were heading that way anyway. The battle for our lives between reality and our digi-existence has been going on for a while but it looks like it’s now over. And the real world lost.
The photographs this week all feature elderly people, from a time when they could be out on the streets and not be terrified to be within close proximity of people. Most people are feeling vulnerable and afraid so my heart goes out to this older generation who must be feeling it infinitely more so. And at a time in their lives when they would naturally be feeling more fragile.
And this experience has made us all feel more fragile in a world where we were already feeling less safe and more apprehensive. And yet fear is the enemy and we must fight it, just as we are fighting this virus. We must accept that life comes with threats. It always has and always will. They just need to be managed, they don’t have to define us.
Fear is a built in survival mechanism but you cannot live in the ‘fight or flight ‘mode 24/7. It is incredibly harmful in the long term. It generates the stress chemical cortisol which attacks the immune system which in a twisted irony could actually make you more susceptible to getting infected so you must try and protect yourself from worry as much as you do from Corona. And you can do that by not being permanently plugged in to the feed. We don’t need to hear about every single update the moment it happens. We can disconnect. We aren’t in those pods remember?