Went for first walk in the neighborhood in 3 weeks (last couple of outings have been in the car) Really bleak, like a ghost town. Maybe 1 in 20 people wearing masks. Depressing af. A few young people out on runs or dog walks, but otherwise half-dead morgue like energy.
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Makes me think that if this were to become a long term, persistent condition — years, even decades perhaps if climate change creates long-term uninhabitable public spaces, life will be literally forced underground.
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The mood here, if not specifics, vaguely reminds me of J. B. Priestley’s post WW2 novels. I read 2 as a teen” Three men in new suits (1945) is about 3 demobbed soldiers returning to civilian life and funding it empty Festival at Farbridge (1951) is a sort of “reboot life” story
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I think restarting public cultural life will take some effort. I suspect towns and neighborhoods will likely mark the occasion ceremonially with some sort of public festival or something. Might be in 3 months or 13, but they will. People need moving-on myth making ceremonies.
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Even though people are doing social distancing based on deference to authority and intellectual prosocial considerations, and in theory to help others rather than themselves, it is getting internalized as a habit rooted in personal fear and a conditioned aversion to contact
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My actual unconscious need for personal space has increased with just 3 weeks of distancing. Reminds me of how quickly I got used to arms length queuing in the US, when I moved from India where the norm is inches rather than feet, including contact in a crush.
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Ie it’s going to feel weird standing close to others when we get back to doing that. It’s not rational, but I suspect personal space is a very basic knob in the human psyche. Social distance *is* the right term. It’s not “just” physical distance because the physical is social.
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And I say this as someone generally averse to physical contact to begin with. I dislike presumptive huggers, arm-around-back-ers, etc. Tbf I don’t even like shaking hands. So if distancing feels like psyche reprogramming to me, I imagine it must be like PTSD to touchy-feels types
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This thing needs some cheering up