The lockdown journal: Between stimulus and response
Writing has always felt cathartic to me. Therefore, in this time of despondence and dystopia, I take to it in an attempt to restore some semblance of normalcy to my life. However, I find myself unable to think or write about anything other than this pandemic--it has completely ensconced me in a cloud of gloom. I thus resort to chronicling my days in the old fashioned journal style. This will not be just a direct retelling of events in my day, though it contain a fair bit of that. I hope to delve a little deeper, and give my Readers something to reflect upon.
The second week of working from home. A gentle dawn greeted me, birds chirping away happily, trees swaying gently, as if celebrating the purer air. But one man's meat is another's poison, and the insides of my house were like an unkempt nest. No coffee or breakfast awaited me. Instead: Two bucket loads of laundry that needed to be dealt with, three meals for the day that needed to be cooked, a sink of vessels that needed to be cleaned, an empty fridge that needed to be stocked up, dirty floors and a countertop that needed cleaning. I looked outside and sighed. If only I was a bird! Let me tell you how I got here.
I have always been privileged to choose the activities I devote my energies to. Happily, I moved away from anything that seemed like drudgery-- cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries etc. Not that I've never lifted a finger in life. My mom, being the practical lady she is, insisted that these chores were part of a survival kit that I should arm myself with. She dragged the unwilling horse that I was to the kitchen. I grumpily growled and did my share of the chores. Every now and then, I would insist that I had learnt everything, that I was ready to be set free. But my mother never approved. For her, effortless perfection was the bar. Slowly I grew stubborn in my disdain for chores and my refusal to do them, and my mom relented.
It is there that you find me in the present, having delegated the cooking and cleaning to a cook and maid, reduced grocery shopping to a few clicks on the phone, having machines wherever possible to reduce manual effort. There have been the occasional few days when I have cooked. The few days I have been forced to clean when the maid was on leave. The few days I have actually trudged down to a store and lugged bags of groceries. But these days have been few, and they have been staggered, never all at once.
So, like several other people of privilege, I found myself unprepared for the waves of this pandemic. A total shutdown, with no house help. Everything I had taken for granted had disappeared, taking with it my feeling of self-sufficiency. It seemed like I had no option but to wield the survival kit that my mom had once spoken of. Cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping took away a considerable chunk of my time and energy yesterday. I was overwhelmed by all of it hitting me at once, though I did have a husband, who contributed equally in all my tasks and even took upon himself some chores that I dreaded.
I was exhausted and whiny by evening, but I knew this was just the beginning. I fell onto the bed, my body complaining of a hundred aches and pains. I began to think of how to optimize this so that I could still devote sufficient energy and time to other activities that I deemed important. I reflected on some of my old observations outlined in My experiments in the kitchen. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I could adapt to this too, that I could find the strength the situation demanded.
I was reminded of Victor Frankl's Man Search for Meaning(In case you haven't read it, it's a book about the author's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and talks about how to find meaning from life even in times of suffering.) If he could find the resilience in him to live meaningfully in such gruesome and extreme circumstances, then so can you and I.
Sharing a few of my favorite highlights from the book:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
The second week of working from home. A gentle dawn greeted me, birds chirping away happily, trees swaying gently, as if celebrating the purer air. But one man's meat is another's poison, and the insides of my house were like an unkempt nest. No coffee or breakfast awaited me. Instead: Two bucket loads of laundry that needed to be dealt with, three meals for the day that needed to be cooked, a sink of vessels that needed to be cleaned, an empty fridge that needed to be stocked up, dirty floors and a countertop that needed cleaning. I looked outside and sighed. If only I was a bird! Let me tell you how I got here.
I have always been privileged to choose the activities I devote my energies to. Happily, I moved away from anything that seemed like drudgery-- cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries etc. Not that I've never lifted a finger in life. My mom, being the practical lady she is, insisted that these chores were part of a survival kit that I should arm myself with. She dragged the unwilling horse that I was to the kitchen. I grumpily growled and did my share of the chores. Every now and then, I would insist that I had learnt everything, that I was ready to be set free. But my mother never approved. For her, effortless perfection was the bar. Slowly I grew stubborn in my disdain for chores and my refusal to do them, and my mom relented.
It is there that you find me in the present, having delegated the cooking and cleaning to a cook and maid, reduced grocery shopping to a few clicks on the phone, having machines wherever possible to reduce manual effort. There have been the occasional few days when I have cooked. The few days I have been forced to clean when the maid was on leave. The few days I have actually trudged down to a store and lugged bags of groceries. But these days have been few, and they have been staggered, never all at once.
So, like several other people of privilege, I found myself unprepared for the waves of this pandemic. A total shutdown, with no house help. Everything I had taken for granted had disappeared, taking with it my feeling of self-sufficiency. It seemed like I had no option but to wield the survival kit that my mom had once spoken of. Cooking, cleaning and grocery shopping took away a considerable chunk of my time and energy yesterday. I was overwhelmed by all of it hitting me at once, though I did have a husband, who contributed equally in all my tasks and even took upon himself some chores that I dreaded.
I was exhausted and whiny by evening, but I knew this was just the beginning. I fell onto the bed, my body complaining of a hundred aches and pains. I began to think of how to optimize this so that I could still devote sufficient energy and time to other activities that I deemed important. I reflected on some of my old observations outlined in My experiments in the kitchen. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I could adapt to this too, that I could find the strength the situation demanded.
I was reminded of Victor Frankl's Man Search for Meaning(In case you haven't read it, it's a book about the author's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and talks about how to find meaning from life even in times of suffering.) If he could find the resilience in him to live meaningfully in such gruesome and extreme circumstances, then so can you and I.
Sharing a few of my favorite highlights from the book:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
I let profound favorite lines soothe me and put me to sleep. I'm sure everyday will be a struggle for all of us, perhaps in different ways, but we always have the space between stimulus and response to decide who we will be. The thought that there is, after all, something in this world that cannot be taken away from us, is in itself quite reassuring and gratifying. :)
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