I feel like a grasshopper in a forest with big trees falling all around me. I am small and nimble enough so I am not personally in physical danger from the falling trees. But the falling trees are remaking the forest and the forest is my home. I can't even describe how I feel. It is not confusion because to be confused one must have at least some interpretation of an event /situation/relationship. I feel like I completely lack the intellectual framework to even form a crude interpretation of what is going on. It feels like I am at a pre-confusion stage, like the Native Americans who couldn't see Columbus' ship because it was so alien to their senses (which I know is a myth). This feeling of alienation encompasses my personal and intellectual life. The whole world seems to be on fire. There have been riots in Holland since Sunday, the farmers' protest in India saw violence today and the Covid shitshow in the UK continues. At such a time, my own problems seem irrelevant. They feel like old-world problems at a time when the world is being radically reshaped. It feels like I can't even put my problems into perspective. For instance, not having an academic job when no one knows what academia will look like on the other side of this. Or wanting to stay on in the West when the West feels like it is a few months away from a complete meltdown of the social order. Not knowing what to want can be both disconcerting and liberating. I have realised that the best thing I can do is stay afloat and let the current take me where it will.
The news from India dominated my attention today but I can't for the life of me make out whether what happened today is good or bad. Usually, I can at least form an opinion, which may well prove to be wrong later. But, no, not now. Adopting a fatalistic attitude seems to be the only way to survive.
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