The Shock of Suddenly Stopping

I have been thinking a lot about how this abrupt stoppage (or at a minimum, significant interruption) to our daily routines will affect us as a society. The last time something like this happened to me it was merely personal, but I still feel its effect every day. It is hard to fathom it as a universal experience. 

Those of us whose schedules just became blank have some real time on our hands. Time to catch up on all those things we’ve been saying we really want to do but have no time for. Like, now, I can paint that picture I’ve been thinking about and list some stuff on Ebay. And clean out the garage. And organize the mud room. And eat more healthily. And read all those books. And, now, I’ll find out how serious I was about wanting to write something deep and profound and share it with the world.

Something happens when we are surprised with a fresh slate. It changes us. Maybe we will not actually do all that stuff that’s been flying around in our heads for years, poking at our brains whenever we come up for air, telling us that that is where our real lives can be found. Maybe we will instead take a new path with previously unconsidered steps and hoped-for outcomes. I do know that envisioning a different future after such an experience can be both rejuvenating and exhilarating, but also terrifying because there is no going back. The prior path seems obscure and less compelling.

I hope that this period of frustration of purposes, discombobulation, and reorientation results in whole new, engaged lives for each one of us - that it forces us out of our ruts, and pulls our heads up out of our regular feed bags. I hope we gain a better sense of where we are in the course of this life, and can focus again on what it is we were put here to do today and the rest of our lives, or at least until the next surprise. And I hope you all remain healthy and strong wherever this moment takes you.