COVID-19 Resource Fatigue
I wrote this blog post about my exhaustion with reading so many articles, blogs, and emails about COVID-19. While this post won’t be full of data, projections, or certainties, I get it if you can’t bring yourself to read one more thing right now. Instead, you can listen to an audio version of this post here.
At the beginning of the shelter-in-place order I, like everyone I know, was starved for information.
I refreshed my browser constantly to see what new morsel of security (or fear) the headlines would bring.
I read every email with tips and guidelines.
I read every link in every email.
I forwarded many emails...and there have been a lot of emails.
Now, I am tired of reading about how to make it through this time. Yes, I can see the irony here, being a person who has created content about how to get through this time myself. Still, something has shifted for me.
I understand the spirit of the resource emails—and I'm grateful for the thoughtfulness, generosity, and pragmatism that is swirling around. But every COVID-19 resource email I get these days triggers a conflict inside my head. Somewhere there's another voice that makes me think grasping for control in the areas where there isn't any to be had is a futile exercise.
Now that I'm washing my hands and my food, wearing a mask, staying 6 feet away from everyone, and following my “Happier from Home” plan most of the time, what's left to understand? There's a fine line between making the most of a situation and striving for a quick fix or easy answer. When exactly will this end? We don't know. How will we fare as a nation? As a global society? Unclear. How long will the recovery take? Also unknown.
There are a lot of people—scientists, economists, politicians, doctors—working on these questions. Voraciously. It might feel like a cop-out, but I'm starting to think I don't have to be one of those people. It's not my job to figure it out. It's my job to stay present and experience the not-knowing.
Because I am employed and healthy, and because my loved ones are also healthy, I have the luxurious privilege of just paying attention and feeling all of the things. I do not want to waste this privilege.
What is your capacity for embracing the Unknown and the Waiting?
Depending on your career path, this could be a skill you already have. When I worked primarily as an actor, I was intimately aware of the sense of hoping for the best after a high-stakes audition. If I booked the job, that could mean I was financially set for the next 1-2 years, and if I didn't, it could mean that everything would stay the same—or worse, my agency would drop me and I wouldn't get another opportunity for months. What do you do with that tension? The possibility? The dread? You hold it. You breathe. You connect to what matters, and the things you can see and touch. Relationships, your car keys, food in the fridge, your catcurled up on the couch, the Netflix show that always makes you laugh.
If you don't have this skill of containing the Great Mystery of Life and the process of honing it makes you terribly uncomfortable, good. Experience that discomfort. For the first time in an era, all of humanity is invited into this moment of waiting and watching. However you choose to exist in this space is up to you, and I think it's all okay.
If you're sewing masks, good.
If you are staring out the window for long stretches of time, good.
If you're cheering for health care workers at 8 pm every night, good.
If you're organizing your closet, good. If you're baking lots and lots of cookies, good.
If you're writing an existential blog post, like me, that's good too.
I support you in your Waiting.
With love and respect,
Malika
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