What lock down did for me.
I had been a self-employed microbusiness that was forced to close. What I did doesn’t matter, it could be you. The purpose here is to describe what happened to me on a personal level and perhaps to my family around me in the house. A good description would be like looking in on the fly on the wall documentaries or a Big Brother reality TV show when the subjects are members of the family and yourself.
The usual teenage behaviours became magnified, all the more so as we are all well post teens now! The culprits of the blame game on small accidents like splashing the toilet seat, suddenly became all-consuming and important issues of the day. We were constantly glued to a diet of Covid 19 news, everything else being buried until we got sick of it and stopped watching.
Eventually some sort of routine was established with the main evening meal as the focal point of the day. What are we having for dinner tonight? My day started to be spent thinking about how was I going to feed the troops? Shopping had become a real chore and balancing the size of our fridge and shopping for the maximum number of days became the routine. Previously we had nipped out to the shops on almost a daily basis or we went out to eat and rarely got a take away meal. The takeaway meal became extinct. The hypochondriacs were ruling the roost. I can now easily understand how people with OCD about cleanliness were so difficult to live with. At one stage the shopping was ritually washed and wiped down with antibacterials before storage. It was driving me crazy.
This was the highlight of the week and where possible I tried to make 2 trips over the 7 days. If you forgot something, tough you had to make do. No fresh basil for the pasta, do without or use the one stored away with other dried herbs and condiments. Invariably these had a best before date that had expired at some date in the past. I even came across some that were before the times advisory dates were printed!
At the start of lock down there was the usual panic buying, this really brought home what people’s priorities were. The Americans stocked up on guns and ammunition; the British on toilet paper, and the Dutch on Cannabis. It was obvious that when the shooting started in the US of A, the Brits were going to shit themselves and the Dutch were going to light up to cover the smell.
I digress back to the main subject. What Lock Down did for me. It gave me and I hope the rest of us some time for introspection. I learnt quite a bit about how consumptive our society has become, how a natural disaster can bring out the best and the worst in us.
After all the perturbation at home things eventually settled to some kind of normality. The squabbling decreased to such an extent that I found myself having for the first time ever a chance to take stock. Stocktaking was urgently required; it had always been placed on the back burner until now.
What the hell am I going to do with my life?
I took up writing like this, I have resolved to make money by using my brain instead of physical buying and selling of goods. I am looking at the world from a different aspect. I have come to a conclusion that as long as I can pay my bills, have food on the table for my family that is sufficient for me. Everything else is a bonus.
There is no way, however much I miss the hustle and bustle and the human interaction will I go back to tangible face to face selling.
The lockdown has led me to the conclusion that a personal income of $50,000 per year without any bills (tax, utilities, mortgages and loans) for every individual over 21 regardless of other income is the only way to achieve a better and more just society.
If some countries can do it in lockdown why can’t they do it all the time? which leads me to the poor rushing over to overwhelm the countries offering such largesse. Why not start with the poorest countries and work up? If Utopia can be created by the Americans or Europeans (and in the ancient mythical world, the Atlanteans), Why can’t we?
Free electricity for all and a one world currency would be a good start.
