Thoughts on life during Covid

When the coronavirus first reared its hideous head, it uprooted every single aspect of my life. In saying so I am not merely engaging in conversational cliche but am speaking literally, for I attend an all-boys boarding school in Dehradun. The coronavirus, therefore, rooted me out of what is usually my dwelling place for eight months of the year and thrust me before my parents’ scrutinising gaze. And when being in the presence of one’s parents for more than two months at a time is seen as an unusual circumstance, there is little room for normalcy elsewhere.

Upon returning home, however, I suffered circumstances similar to those of other adolescents. For starters, I had the opportunity of being bored by virtual learning, though the silence of an online classroom is particularly unsettling when one is unaccustomed even to sleeping without students bustling in the background. Gradually, also, I was suffocated by the isolation. My roommates who are usually not more than a few steps away could only be reached by flight, that too only if COVID granted me the privilege. I mailed and texted and video-called but eventually everything – every chat, every birthday, every time I came across something funny I wanted to share – became a poignant reminder of my solitude. This feeling was most peculiar to me for I consider myself an introvert (some of my friends would go so far as to say that I am antisocial) and yet I itched to meet people other than those in my family, who were unaccustomed to so much of me as well. Seeing as I was helpless to alleviate any of this, I began to wallow in nostalgia and misery. So intense was my longing for physical interaction that I’d pounce on every message notification, perhaps only to savour the idea that there were others, that there was something concrete behind this pall of loneliness and uncertainty.

I had fully expected this pall to hover over me for the entire duration of the lockdown. And yet, after a while I no longer felt the need to wallow or, I dare say, for in-person interaction. It still lingered, but no longer had the same effect. Now I don’t know if this was my introversion flourishing after incubating under my new circumstances or my finally being pushed over the edge or simply habituation, but it was a pleasant feeling, relative to the desolation I previously felt. Whatever it was, I was glad to have reached that point and didn’t dare venture into its implications on my character, vis-a-vis my already festering social ineptitude, or my mental state. It also freed up the time I spent wallowing, allowing me to focus my energies on what I was told were pressing matters. I had to be told because it seemed that I had sacrificed my ambition on my road to contentment. As a result, I was quite happy to loiter away my time solely in television and movies and things of the sort for I had settled into somewhat of a severely premature retirement. The isolation, it seemed, and all the uncertainty it brought with it, had muddled my visions of my future. Myopia convinced me that this was all there was to my existence, and although I had an inkling of what I wanted to do and be and accomplish, it simply couldn’t fill the void of possibility my circumstances presented. And so, the sparks of my passions were snuffed out one by one until I spent each day lolling in reverie, intent on nothing.

Thankfully, my parents wrenched me out of this torpor. Over a series of diatribes, they painted a most desolate picture of the future that awaited me were I to continue down the path I had chosen. It occurred to me, then, that the uncertainty I had blamed for my future was simply an excuse because I was too lazy to bring order to the chaos that had shrouded my world. I realised, also, that I was ideally placed to work toward what I wanted to be. And although part of my revitalization meant surmounting the daily drudgery of schoolwork and courting the favour of colleges and universities, it also involved trying to achieve my ‘ideal self’. This ‘self’ wasn’t an ideal self, but was my ideal self, and so was composed of skills and characteristics that perhaps only I was interested in having. And herein lay the main, and possibly the only, benefit of the lockdown. Without social interaction, and all that comes with it, to occupy my mind, I was forced to spend time with myself, and I discovered that I wasn’t very fond of that person. Therefore, I sought out to change him.

I now spend my time reading books and watching online courses and practising musical instruments and doing various other activities that bring me closer to actualising my ideal self. I will, of course, never truly become this character I have conjured up simply because I will keep adding more traits to him as I go on. However, simply moving closer to this character transformed the somewhat bovine contentment I previously felt into a deeper satisfaction, and I experience the fruits of my introspection in every day of my life.

As for the ever-lingering uncertainty, I do nothing other than seek solace in the adage everything must come to an end. I drew, also, from the stoics and discovered that it was futile to drive myself mad in anticipation of normalcy because, beyond being socially responsible, there was and is little I could do to rid the world of COVID. Therefore, my entire approach to dealing with this situation has been to exercise my control over whatever I could and leave the rest to whatever force governs the world, or just random chance if that is the case.

Advaita Sood, Class XII,

The Doon School.