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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Wearing a mask (I have a surgical mask I’m reusing, and we’ve ordered a couple of cloth ones off Etsy) really alters your perception of the environment. You feel like an invalid even if you’re fine. When only a minority are wearing masks, the perception is of paranoia/illness.
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I’m not a high-energy type person myself but I like my social environment to be high energy and bustling. That charges me a bit. This was... not that. Worst walk ever.
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There’s no real pattern to who is wearing masks. The nicer looking cloth masks are middle class people. The surgicals are all over the place... homeless, poor, middle class, young, old, service people, cops, regular people. Spotted a few scattered N95s. Again no real pattern.
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Doesn’t help that today is a slightly muggy grey day. What really hits you is the silence. People are walking around, at perhaps 1/5th tegukar density, but nobody is talking to anyone else. Couples out together seem to speak more softly, in funereal whispers.
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The body language is grim, dour, joyless. No smiles. Even the runners have a workmanlike energy to their run. There is none of the exhilaration you generally sense in people exercising. Emotionally this is definitely apocalyptic.
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Gonna paint a clown smile or something on my cloth mask when it arrives
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I’ve never experienced an environment quite like this. The closest is curfews during communal riots or general strikes in India in the 80s, or public spaces in authoritarian countries I’ve visited like Chile. It’s quite awful. The Great Indoors is truly great in relative terms.
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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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Replying to @vgr
How much of this ennui is a function of LA? Live in leafy suburban Sydney - green / nature etc helps a lot
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The contrast is certainly extreme for DTLA which is normally exploding with life
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