Creative Life In The Virus Age (Why don't we all just stay at home?)

15/4/20

   Why don’t we all just stay at home? Why do we need to work so hard? If we all worked just a little bit less, we might just have a bit more time for other pastimes, hobbies! There would be cultural enrichment. I read somewhere that during a period when ‘the plague’ was visiting London and the theatres were closed William Shakespeare wrote three of his best plays ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’, ‘Macbeth’ and ‘King Lear’ in 1605/06. He stayed away from London, (presumably in Stratford upon Avon?) at the time.

26/4/20

   You might think that with more time on some of our hands during the virus crisis many of us would produce creative efforts which might be very impressive. For so long we have all been bottled up in our careers and our efficient modern workloads. There was no time for anything else except for work, sleep and the inevitable TV and social media which have so taken over so much of our leisure time. I wrote a poem about the Coronavirus as early as 3^rd of March 2020, appreciating broadly what we might be facing. Then in mid and late March (around 19^th to 23rd) the UK suddenly plunged from phony virus war into a real semi lockdown where schools and unnecessary work functions were gradually curtailed over a period of days. Restaurants and pubs and cafes, and sporting events, concerts, theatres and films had already been closed over the week before. Then on 6/4/20 I wrote another poem piece which I was also quite pleased with as it portrayed our and my observations of the effects of semi lockdown upon us and of the ravages of the virus in Italy in particular.

    Initially there was much excitement, reflected on Facebook, and no doubt elsewhere, at the prospect of more people being off work and having more time on their hands for personal pursuits at home. Creativity was instantly noticed on Facebook, as humour and jokes in posts about panic buying and being off work came thick and fast. But there were poems and prose on abctales.com and Facebook about the virus and its effect on people, and much speculation about how events would develop and how society would cope. We were delivered from the rather dry, although certainly unprecedented and thought provoking, debates about Brexit, and expectations of how Boris Johnson’s new government would manage it, with their new mandate from the people.

   It was a welcome change to be talking all of a sudden about new issues and fears, and observing history being written before our eyes and on the television screens, and being able to make new jokes or give new opinions on these subjects. Many, including myself, felt confident we would use our time profitably to showcase some of our writing or do some new writing, or follow creative pursuits. I did not bargain for all the demands upon my time, which keeping abreast of the ever changing and deepening news demanded. Frequently I would sit for half the morning or the whole of lunchtime watching the catalogue of rising terrors as one country after another felt the rising numbers of cases and deaths, and the shocking revelations of hospital workers contracting the virus, and all too often dying of it, of endless patients needing ventilator support but rarely seeming to survive in countless countries, and now in our own too. The drones being utilized to keep the people off the streets in Spain, and strong policing of lockdowns in France, Spain and Italy. Then the stories appeared of freezer trucks being employed to store the dead bodies in New York, and the punishing long shifts the hospital workers were having to do in all these countries and places, and in our own. Then far too late we heard the sad and appalling news that the virus had already run amok in nursing and residential homes around the UK and it was already too late to keep all the residents properly protected.

   Absorbing social media posts fill so much of my time, humour and news articles, opinions from friends, exciting debates, and the distraction of favourite musical choices shared on Facebook to keep us absorbed. So what have I really achieved except to post a handful of novel section writings, and some off the cuff poems and prose pieces? I keep scrolling and scrolling Facebook even when I have already seen all of the posts or replied to such and such more than once. It is so addictive, so enlightening, sometimes fulfilling, but largely such a great waste of time, and it prevents you doing the hobbies such as actual writing that you really want to do and would make you more satisfied with time well spent. If only I could be stronger and more focused, and limit the time I spend on it. Only a few ever read my posts anyway. Why do I bother doing so much of it, when I really mainly want to do other things anyway?

  Every morning I get up later and later, and more slowly than the last, even though I am working, but even more part time, than usual. And I go to bed later than ever; there is so much to absorb. I don’t want to miss any of it, and I want to work on my writing projects. I am not missing friends or social networks because I wouldn’t get much writing done if I did too much of that even in ordinary times. Besides there are increased looking after the animals chores, because we have a second dog arrived in the household in recent weeks, but he will bark at and even chase our beloved cat if given half the chance, so I now have to spend a disproportionate amount of my time keeping them separated, coaxing a reluctant cat in at night, and preventing the new little dog from running off down the road if someone opens the front door by mistake or with insufficient care. So I go to bed later and later.