Hi. So this is the blog! I’ve written here in the past, way way back in the day, but in light of current situations, I’ve finally had time to start it up again. And by current situations ~ dare I mention it so soon ~ I do mean the coronavirus. A question I have at this point is; what did anyone ever talk about before corona? Because no matter who you are, where you come from, it has an impact on your life in a very unique and specific way to you. That is not supposed to sound like a weird attack from the stranger that is me, but more a moment to open and inspire thought. When will we ever be at a point again where we will globally share so much in common? Where we (finally!) have a break and time at home to relax more than we may usually allow ourselves to.
Global pandemic; isolation; quarantine; lockdown - all key words we are very much familiar with at the current moment. But what do we do with that? I tried to find an answer to this question through my many days of reflection. Its actually going to be a month today. And through this reflection I wanted to share two major trails of thought that have made me see the situation quite differently.
The first thing is sense of home. A little bit of background to this is me being a British citizen but having grown up in Singapore. I already had a very confused sense of where home really was more me and also where I was supposed to say I was from. While I am British with a British passport, I don’t really have much association with the reality of the culture there. At the same time, I am not Singaporean and did not go to a local school, so I am also slightly removed from that culture too. So where are people like me actually from? Its a question that I have always been confused about but never really wanted to dwell on because I just wanted to exist in the countries that I was living in (that makes it sound like I’ve lived in loads of places but its only Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK so far for reference). But now, it has all been brought up again. This is because when countries started going into lockdown, many people from my university and many people that I knew from Singapore started to return ‘home’ for the isolation period. It was interesting for me to see how so many people still consider ‘home’ to be where their families are, which is often the same place as where they grew up. In considering this, its also probably important to note that people did quarantine with their families because they knew it would be safer to all be together and with their registered health systems. But in a weird way, I guess it just made me think about where people call home. Many of us have created lives outside of the places that we grew up, whether it be in the same country or in a different one, whether it be university or working, new lives have and are still being established. At what point does one place become home over another? Or is home more a blend of every part of your life? Just food for thought at this point, and I’d love to know what other people think about this.
The second thing quarantine reflection has revealed to me is the personal pressure that I know I put on myself and I’m sure a lot of people are experiencing too. I suddenly thought that because we now have all this free time, I needed to have started writing a book and learnt the guitar and lost 5kg and cook all the things I always said were too hard to do before. It feels good to do well and an excuse we often give ourselves is lack of time. But because people have lives and things to do, usually you can’t just drop everything to learn an instrument. And the pressure that now comes with having access to so much time unleashes a space where we can’t come up with excuses for not achieving these things. But after a month of fighting this pressure, I want to say that I have finally been turning it into peace of mind. You don’t need to do loads of unachievable things to make yourself feel good. Its already a massively difficult time for a lot of people, so lets pride ourselves in the things we do achieve in a day. Eating a nice meal, or zoom calling friends, watching an insane movie, those things we deserve more than ever. Finally a time to be removed from the hustle and bustle of reality so why can’t we just enjoy that while we have it?
These are just some thoughts for the time, hope everyone is well and happy Monday :) Comment below!
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