Revenge of the Single, Childless, Introverts

I am going to try to write this blog without sounding churlish, which is going to be tough. This is my third week of self-isolation and I am coping quite well. This is partly down to circumstance--I'm comfortably off financially, in good health, my bedroom is pleasant, etc. etc.The other part is to do with me being a single, childless, introvert. I am happy that I am childless for obvious reasons--we could be on lockdown for weeks, if not months. I am happy that I am single because the government's advice is that couples should either move in together or not see each other for the duration of the lockdown. Unless you are with the love of your life and your housing situation is conducive to  moving in together, that's a scary set of options.
We live in a world that holds extroversion, consumerism and being coupled up as ideal states. Single people are shamed, minimalists are mocked as oddballs and introverts kept being asked why they speak so little. As an introvert who has been single most of his adult life, I have felt like a bit of an alien in all the places I have lived. Its only in recent years that I have become increasingly comfortable with myself. But I have never been able to shake off the feeling that this world belongs to the pub-going, travel-loving extrovert, and introverts should be content to skulk on the sidelines. Most introverts don't crave the limelight, but the message that many of us take away is that we are different to most and inferior in this respect, irrespective of whatever other virtues we have. Extroversion, consumerism and being coupled up seemed like the natural order, and you could defy that order but not without some social censure.
The coronavirus has upended this natural order. Extroversion, consumerism and being in a romantic relationship are banes at the moment, not boons. Of course, coronavirus will go away eventually and the old order may rise again. But, hopefully, the lesson I and other introverts will take away from this is that ECR may be the dominant order but it is not the 'natural order'. It is reflective of a particular socio-historical epoch and nothing else. Just because a particular socio-hisotrical epoch doesn't resonate with our personalities doesn't mean our personalities are deficient. And the next time I feel envious towards ECRs, hopefully I will remember this insight. 

Quarantine Haircut

I have often written about my bad haircuts,but this time I have noone but myself to blame. My head had started to look very mangy so I decided to give myself a haircut. It seldom happens that I am satisfied with a haircut so why not be dissatisfied by my own skills this time? Turns out there is plenty of scope to mess up a haircut. I tried trimming my hair with a beard-trimmer and it was a bad idea because no matter what the setting, it started to pull hair from the roots. My right side looked like I was recovering from brain surgery. So, I abandoned the trimmer and picked up the scissors. I didn't do badly until I trimmed my front too short. So now both my sides and front are a disaster.
I don't have many regrets because I won't be going out in public much and we could be locked down for weeks. But I have discovered that while I may not have as much hair as I would like, I have more than enough to mess up a haircut. I am never going to try cutting my hair again until I have substantially less hair.

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.