Clocks Go Forward

Since the clocks go forward tonight, I commemorated the occasion with my Cozy Winter Yoga with Adrienne session. This has become a ritual that gives me intense satisfaction--I do the same session at the end of daylight savings time as well as the start. It marks the change of season and is a comforting reminder of how long I have been doing yoga.
At the end of daylight savings time in October I was a little anxious about my house hunt. Fortunately, it worked out fine and I am perfectly happy with my current accomodation. I will next do the cozy yoga session when daylight savings time ends in October, seven months from now. I wonder what the world will look like then. Never in my lifetime has the path of humanity, and hence my path, been so uncertain. As coronavirus sweeps the world, nothing can be taken for granted. Not our lives, and not our way of life. It is bound to change, the question is by how much. 

Coronavirus Sacrifices

This evening at 8 pm, people clapped and cheered for the NHS from their homes. I don't stand on ceremony, but I am deeply grateful for the NHS and their work. This is not a war; a few professions, most of them badly paid are being asked to make disproportionate sacrifices compared to the rest of the population. We are not all in this together, at least not to the same extent. Medical staff are putting their lives, and those of their loved ones, on the line, and most of them are doing so without proper personnel protective equipment. Apart from the medical staff, supermarket workers, police, emergency services, and other key workers, what are the rest of us doing? Panic buying and going on picnics amid a burst of good weather following a very wet winter. Hopefully, when all this is over there will be a reckoning of who has sacrificed how much and what that should mean for their  post-virus prospects. At the minimum, it should prompt a reappraisal of who constitutes a key workers and which jobs are actually valuable. 

INFJ Exceptionalism

Today, I  found out, much to my chagrin, that two family members are INFJs like me , according to the Myers-Brigs personality test. I was chagrined because INFJ is apparently the rarest personality type, a fact which I keep reminding my non-INFJ friends about. And, also because I would never have categorized the said two family members as INFJs. It just tells you how different your perception of people could be of their perception of themselves (which is what gets tested). It turns out that there are a lot of closet introverts who present as extroverts. I know better than to mistake shyness for introversion, but I would genuinely not have categorized both the family members as either shy or extroverted. 

Cry, They Beloved Country

Browsing Twitter over  the past two days, two short clips from India stayed with me. The proprietor of a major newspaper had posted a clip of herself with her domestic staff standing outside her bungalow, clapping and banging on utensils to cheer for health workers as part of the Indian Prime Minister's grand spectacle. The staff--five of them--are flanking her at a respectful distance and they are all barefoot, as someone on Twitter pointed out. The proprietor was in slippers. Domestic help in Indian households never slippers around the house, unlike the people they work for. In fact, slippers are often their footwear when they step out of the house.
I wonder what went through the proprietor's mind when she posted that picture, which screams of privilege, wealth inequality and caste discrimination. Maybe she thought she was being inclusive and magnanimous by deigning to include her domestic staff in a clip to be posted on Twitter.
The second clip showed a teenage boy crying because he had been wandering around for three days searching for a bus to take him home before the lockdown in India. He was a daily-wage labourer, slightly built, with a swarthy complexion. One of the millions of power, presumably lower-caste Indians for whom survival is a struggle as it is. The coronavirus lockdown is likely to visit unimaginable trials and tribulations on these people.
I know this piece is dripping with judgement, and I don't care. Nowhere else in the world is your fate determined to such an extent by the family you are born in. Nowhere else in the world is the subordination and the subjugation of lower castes and classes so methodological and complete. The caste system is hardwired to such an extent in Indian life that it is almost invisible. 

Lockdown

Tonight, after weeks of dithering and stalling, the UK government is likely to impose a lockdown. Its been a long time coming, and I don't expect it to alter my life dramatically. Over the past ten days, I have only stepped out of the house to shop, go for a walk once and to uni to pick up a few backs. Oh, and I visited a friend over the weekend in her house.
For most of my time in the UK, I had thought being out of the house every day was key to my mental health. The PhD room was my oasis and I had taken to working from there six days a week before the outbreak. How things have changed. I went to the  PhD room to pick up a few books this morning and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It felt like an alien place.
Unlike most people, I am not distressed by the thought of a lockdown. As an introvert with an at-home exercise practice, I am better equipped than most to handle it. It also remains to be seen how strict it will be since people will still be allowed to commute for work.

Faith and Reason

Today I had a difference of opinion with a friend from school days about the Indian prime minister's exhortation to the people of India to stand on their balconies today and bang metal utensils. The purpose of this exercise is to show solidarity against the coronavirus threat or to kill the virus with vibrations, depending on your scientific temperament. My first reaction was to dismiss my friend's view as unscientific. My school friends are not my ideological bedfellows, and I seldom engage in political discussions with them because I am scared of what views they may express.
But then I thought of my own belief in faith-based practices. Prior to my awakening, I flirted with a number of alternative healing techniques, some of which involved manipulating chakras and energies. Looking back, it sometimes make me cringe but I don't want to make the mistake of  judging my past through the prism of the present. I consider myself a seeker and I am no blind believer in the power of reason. Life is difficult and we all must find the right balance of faith and reason that makes us feel at peace with ourselves and the world.  Blind faith or blind reason can both be dangerous and must be called out. But, as with most things in life, one could do with being less judgemental of the person exhibiting what we feel is blind faith or blind reason. What spiritual tools one relies on to make life more livable is one's own business.
At a time when people and the world seem more and more irrational, suspending judgement is also a survival strategy. Because judgement brings engagement with it, and often the best strategy is to not engage with crazy for our own peace of mind. 

Spring Will Come

As humankind groans under the burden of the pandemic, the natural world ambles on, oblivious. In some cases, it fills up the space recently vacated by the anthropocene, such as the dolphins in the canals of Venice. The country is girding for a lockdown, which is meant to pause life and arrest the spread of the disease. But, life won't really pause. We will still, hopefully, be provided food and utilities and both require enormous amounts of movement. And, the natural world won't pause either. The view from my window will change as the tree branches shed the greyness of autumn and sprout fruits, flowers and leaves. The songs of the birds will grow louder and chirpier, and the sunlight will stream into my window. In other words, the winter of pandemic won't last forever. Things might well become worse before they get better. But, spring will come.