At an intellectual level I know in part what is happening. The whole world is experiencing massive trauma—the actual trauma of illness, death and grief and the vicarious trauma we all suffer as wall-to-wall coverage of the pandemic envelops us. But an intellectual understanding is different to the lived experience of the new reality. We want to escape it, but we can't. We want life to be back to normal but it isn't. We want to turn the clock back but it's impossible.
How then to endure the pandemic? In truth, we can't avoid it, but I think we can do a few things that will help. Our tradition in the West has tended to school us that endurance requires the unchanging. To change is imperfect, the perfect never changes, therefore we ought to look for that which never changes, that which endures. In the East things endure because they change. Endurance requires flexibility and suppleness rather than the rigidity of the unchanging. The natural world endures because it grows and evolves and responds to the changes around it.
So the first thing I am telling myself is not to look to what I have lost in the pandemic. Plans have been dashed, not to be recovered in the way they were planned. Mourn the losses for a while, perhaps, but don't linger.
The second things is to ask myself given the new situation how do I respond to the changes? How can I be flexible? I have for a long time been a fan of nonresistance. To resist the oncoming force is more often than not to be overcome by that force. To redirect, to deflect, to roll with the force and to respond after the force is deflected is a better strategy. Perhaps a pertinent example suffices: to resist the virus by refusing to wear a protective mask is a foolish strategy; better to roll with it, protect yourself and others, adapt to the new situation. (We likely will be wearing masks in public for some time to come.) Business as usual—the unchanging—will not endure the types of massive change a pandemic brings.
My third self-direction is to continue a life-practice that contains routines, rituals and practices that adapt to new situations, and help over time to develop character. Simple things: sensible bed and rising times; eating healthy; daily exercise (for me an hour's tai chi, and a couple mile walk with the dogs; Jane substitutes Zumba for tai chi); prayer and meditation; reading; some screen time, but limited; work but within defined limits and not 24/7 tied to email. I suspect that it's the simple daily rituals that will get us through this in the best shape.
My fourth self-reminder is to be kind to myself and to others; to exercise empathy; to nurture my relationships. At the end of the day, that's likely most important.
Time will tell,
+Ab. Andy