On Pandemic Fatigue

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the words "Pandemic Fatigue" has taken hold of the zeitgeist of today's cultural vernacular. In essence, it is the constant sense of malaise that one feels in the wake of rapidly changing movement control orders by the governments of the world post Covid-19, leading to insecurity, doubt, and the feeling that lives are put on hold for an interminable amount of time.

The recent announcements by the Government to essentially go into a “lockdown lite” left me with a sense of negative deja vu. I get that these measures are necessary to protect the more vulnerable among us, but at the same time, there is a part of me that no longer sees a light at the end of a rather long, windy tunnel.?It's perhaps easy to characterise this as a millennial sentiment, but at the same time, this pandemic is easily the biggest blow to the economy, to society, and to our ways of life post the ending of the cold war in 1989, and especially for us (who are quite frankly at the start of our careers/lives), there is constant rumination on how the world will unfold, change and shake itself up.

Many of us felt that 2020 would be the worst of it, but 2021 has not been much better. We continue to work under lockdown conditions most of the time, and I have friends in retail, hospitality and F&B who continue to toil away with virtually no job security or living with the nagging fear that their own businesses are one more lockdown away from closure. The reality is that these regulations have not been kind to small businesses in these industries, and this is making life very very hard for them.?While these are unescapable conditions that were the direct result of necessary counter-Covid measures (and that the Government has provided some aid), a considerable number of businesses have closed, dreams have been dashed, and livelihoods have been put on risk.

Cabin fever is real, the feeling of having to live life on pause mode is real, and dealing with the constantly changing regulations makes moving forward in life a humongous and uncertain task.?However, even in the midst of uncertainty, I suggest that we can continue to find value in what we do, in living the lives that we are meant to lead, and to seek a sense of purpose in metaphorical darkness. This may not be the most radical thing ever proposed, but this was one of the results arising from my rumination above.

One of my favourite novels by Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest, is named after the famous statue of Theagenes in the National Museum of Rome’s Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. The book is about how life scar tissues develop when we go through the various stages of our life. It leaves us battered, and yet like Theagenes, we remain resolute in our determination to not be broken and remain undefeated.

In one of his short stories, Jones describes the life of Alexander Selkirk, the real Robinson Crusoe, who was a Scottish privateer in the Royal Navy.

Apparently, Selkirk was such so intolerable with such an amazingly bad attitude that his captain couldn’t take it anymore when Selkirk took to bad-mouthing the seaworthiness of their boat. He marooned Selkirk on a small remote Juan Fernández island in the South Pacific, imagining he would never see him again.?

But life on the island transformed him. He forged knives from abandoned barrel hoops. He built two remarkably well-constructed huts out of pepper trees: one for cooking and one for sleeping. On top of that, he taught himself to tan goatskins for his clothes, while he built his feet up with calluses so tough he could run over thorns and rocks.?He reached a super human level of fitness, created amazing mental resilience to allow him to ward off the despair caused by loneliness. Eventually, he was rescued and returned to life a man transformed. He eventually became a privateer captain and captured a famous treasure galleon which he would rename Batchelor and sail to the Dutch East Indies.

What does this little tale that I regaled tells us? That amidst adversity, challenges and drastic changes, we can still find opportunities to become the better version of ourselves. That sometimes, when we're backed into a corner, we find that we have it in ourselves to fight back against our circumstances. Above all, that we aren't defined but our circumstances, but by how we react to them. Today, many of us are on our own Juan Fernández islands, watching time go by (as we count back to our next "reopening of society").

How many of us are feeling marooned?

Initially, I dealt with it by detaching myself from the whole thing about moving life forward, but now I've turned my focus to immersing myself in poetry, literature from the ages, get my running shoes and eat up some miles, and indulge in the little pleasures in life. At the same time, I am trying to be grateful for the littlest of things, and trying my absolute best to be kind, both to others and more importantly, to myself.?

Perhaps in the process, I can discover my inner Alexander Selkirk and become a better version of myself. There are certainly days where I craved for a Royal Navy destroyer to sail by and I can fire some flares so that I can be spotted and rescued off my little spot of Juan Fernández, but there are also days where I knuckle down and "get stuff done". The challenge for me then, is to make sure that the latter outnumbers the former.

Ultimately, pandemic fatigue is real, these changing times are real, and we are still in the middle of a very long, dark and windy tunnel. Perhaps we will look back at all this, have a few beers, and smile about how we went through it together.