There has been an increase in media and social media posted around how to “optimize this time” while we’re quarantined that I find concerning. I’m not trying to dismiss anyone’s approach on an individual level, but will personally admit it has instantly made me anxious, more anxious, anxious in a different way. It feels like we are going to be now quickly returning to the status quo of social media as basically a giant competition instead of this community network. And that we need to prove that we are using our quarantine time as efficiently as possible. It feels like it’s contradictory to what hopefully the greater message of this could be. That in a time of already high stress and anxiety, with many people in my life working freelancing careers and multiple jobs, with families and all the things, and now confronted by this crisis, that we focus on staying calm and healthy, and maybe plotting the overthrow of our current government. Not to create a new competition. Not to be in competition with one another, but to be positive and supportive for one another.
This is not to say that I think individual people are necessarily intending to create competition, but rather that this is a default mode we are slipping into that is potentially harmful to our mental health. I have major issues with the idea of individual efficiency and productivity in our culture as a whole. I believe this is functioning in the same way as we have seen self-care get co-opted by capitalism, leading to increased production by individuals, increased consumption, and emphasis moving from cultural causes of our mental and physical illnesses towards individual responsibility.
This crisis is being so quickly co-opted towards productivity, that specifically as artists we should be making brand new art projects, we should learn a language, and write a novel, we must maximize this time and make it somehow “worth something”.
And that’s lovely if it’s your jam, I’m not saying that those goals are wrong, but it’s also not wrong to need to sleep 14 hours a day and do some crying and take a long bath. If that’s what you need to do then do that. And don’t feel pressured by what’s happening on social media to feel bad about anything you need to do. It doesn’t mean wallowing is necessarily good, or tips for staying in touch with friends and family and how to stay social aren’t useful, but the pressure to do this the “right way” I feel is unhealthy and I’m not the only one who’s going to find anxiety in that.
Also let’s keep in mind we can all do a week of this pretty easily. But I don’t think we’re realizing how much harder its going to be at two or three weeks. I’d say here in Chicago we’re at Day 1, maybe Day 2. I went out yesterday to the store, I don’t think I’m going to go out again (except for dog walks and runs thankfully), so really for me Today is Day 1. And what does that look like to be three weeks into this? So let’s focus on the long haul, you know, let’s not burn ourselves out, or set unrealistic goals that we then feel guilty about not meeting. The anxiety and depression that is inevitably going to be associated with this experience (especially for many of us that already struggle with anxiety and depression) is going to be the next big fight. And after we come out of quarantine many of us don’t know what kind of life we’ll be returning to. Let’s focus on, (and not to discount the many, many people who already are) the ways we can use social media to empower ourselves with information, to organize politically, to laugh together, and provide support to people suffering.
These thoughts have been inspired in part the “Please Do a Bad Job of Putting Your Courses Online” piece hat has been circulating around academic circles. This put into words a lot of the things I was thinking right as I started to receive notice that my classes were heading online. Again, there is an emphasis coming from the institutions for productivity not well-being. And we need to do what we can to push back.
Above link is to an Atlantic Article titled “How ‘Treat Yourself’ Became a Capitalist Command”