‘This is not an era in which good things are taken at face value. We are cynical, irritable and tired, and if there is a bad intention to be read into anything, someone will scratch away at it until they decide that they have found it.’
These evocative sentences seem, to me at least, to sum up so much of our current daily lives. They are written by Guardian journalist Rebecca Nicholson as counterpoint to the author’s praise of the Wordle (see here if you haven’t yet succumbed to this distraction). Like a rare beam of sunshine in these wintry, grey January days, Nicholson sees the Wordle as simple, unalloyed joy. I can agree that a Wordle usually gives a few minutes satisfaction amongst whatever trials or chores one is facing (tax return, for instance, or are you all so virtuous you did yours last summer?), although it is hardly sufficient to overcome pandemic-induced exhaustion. I suspect everyone would agree the endless saga of the pandemic has long since passed its sell by date, but might not choose the Wordle as their procrastination method of choice.
At the start of this plague, I wrote superficially wise words about being kind to oneself, not expecting too much, not immediately planning on learning a new language or otherwise improving oneself, but simply doing as much as one could under what felt like extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Watching fellow committee members get to grips with Zoom was amusing in those early days, producing a wry smile when someone forgot to unmute themselves again. Or, equally, when they had never muted themselves in the first place and an invisible dog let its annoyance heard when the Amazon delivery arrived, we were just able to smile and move on. No more. As Nicholson says we are ‘cynical, irritable and tired’. All of the above all of the time, or so it feels. Remembering to be kind to others, let alone oneself, seems a task in itself.
Committee meetings with people one has never had the opportunity to meet in real life are much, much harder than when you’ve met each other before as well as had a chance for a natter beforehand over coffee. Body language cannot (readily) be read on Zoom, so it’s impossible to see if your pal up in the top left-hand corner shares your irritation when third from the left in the middle row drones on and on. (I don’t trust sending private messages in the chat to remain private; perhaps others get their laughs through that medium.) But, more importantly, as a Chair it is so much harder to read who is getting irritated and is about to explode when they’re only a couple of inches across, or spot who would love to make a comment but doesn’t quite have the confidence (or can’t find the electronic hand in time). How do you know when consensus is within grasp when you can’t see the whites of members’ eyes? And so on. To chair meetings like this is exceptionally hard work, and the outcomes are not as good as they might be, as often as not. Circumstances are against everyone in that room, although we all have to live with the consequences. Irritability and cynicism follow from the tiredness that Nicholson identifies.
Unfortunately, the business of the day does not go away. Patience is a virtue that we all need to practice under these circumstances, as well as that kindness to oneself and everyone around. After almost two years, that has become an increasingly tall order. All the more reason for finding the nuggets of gold in the day, be it a Wordle or (as an example in my case) a long-tailed tit – indeed a family of them – finding their way to the bird feeder in front of the window as I eat my breakfast. I have not yet resorted to a gratitude diary to try to record these brief nuggets, but I can see how the act of identifying some pleasant occurrences might improve internal resilience, as yet another day of Zoom and disembodied conversation approaches.
Working from home is no problem for me. I am spoilt by living in a substantial ‘tied cottage’ (viz, the Master’s Lodge) on the College site. Space is not the issue (albeit tidiness is and always has been. No clear desk policy ever worked for me.). Many who thought during the autumn they had just escaped back to the office from their square metre of space perched on a stool in the kitchen, will be demoralised by the return to their confinement and unsatisfactory working conditions (probably non-ergonomic ones too, if they haven’t thought hard about this). I have green grass outside, not an urban roofscape and dirty pavements. In that too I am fortunate. Nevertheless, like most of my readers I suspect, it is tempting to want to shout from the roof tops ‘I’ve had enough!’.
Will we all become hedonists when this is past, wanting to spend long hours in the exciting surroundings of a Costa or a pub where someone else has done the cooking? No doubt we would be amused to read, in years to come, our top ten guesses of how the world will have changed by the end of the pandemic if placed in a sealed envelope now. Like watching a TV programme many years later which predicted the widgets and gizmos of tomorrow (older readers will remember the joys of BBC Tomorrow’s World which used to do this), no doubt our predictions would be found to be wildly astray. However, first, we have to reach the end of the pandemic, or at least the end of this acute phase, whatever the longer-term chronic situation may be.
