Love in the Time of Corona: Part III
“No man is an island entire of itself.”
This sentiment, implored by English writer and Anglican cleric, John Donne, is sorely needed in our current moment. The 400-year-old metaphysical poet was at constant pains to remind his readers that they were not forgotten. For Donne, who saw himself as permanently “involved in mankind,” no individual could be forgotten because “every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”.
Thankfully, this seems to be the same attitude that so many people have taken online in recent weeks. From live-streamed music concerts of every genre imaginable to online dance classes, watching parties, raves and reading groups, the overwhelming response to our COVID-19-induced separation has been an outpouring of digital social connection. It’s arguable that despite still finding ourselves physically isolated in our island homes we have managed to stay as connected as ever.
However, now at the end of our fourth week in lock down, I’ve found that my sense of isolation has shifted. At first, my pressing concerns were about the nature and substance of my isolation. Am I really cut off from the world? What can and will I do while in isolation? But now, I’m thinking more and more about the quality of my isolation. In other words, I’ve found myself asking whether I’m using my time well while we wait out the coronavirus.
Like many others, I now — supposedly — have more time in my day. But the question as to whether or not I am using my time well only occurred to me when I started noticing two competing schools of thought emerging online on how to best use this time. On the one hand are a camp of commentators promoting “productivity” throughout the pandemic. On the other hand, there are those encouraging me to instead focus on “self-care” in this time of crisis. And weirdly enough, these two seemingly competing views reminded me of an old friend from university. The original man on the island, the unwitting king of self-isolation.
Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Well, if I’m honest, it was mainly the bit about the island and isolation that made me think of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. But the more I thought about Defoe’s 300-year-old novel, the more I realised that Crusoe is the original isolation busybody. Yes, that’s right. Crusoe, “who lived eight and twenty years, all alone in an un-inhabited island on the coast of America” (1). Crusoe, who I not only hold personally responsible for all six seasons of Lost, Wilson’s untimely demise, and my nightmares of Milky Joe; but, who is also the only character in literary history that can be fairly blamed for most middle-aged men’s secret belief that keeping up your D.I.Y. skills is necessary — just in case you end up on a desert island. Robinson Crusoe was the original productive self-isolator extraordinaire.
At face value, Crusoe would fit in well with the “productivity” camp mentioned above. Many of their articles are innocent enough and no different from what we might normally see in an age where start-ups, social media influencers, and a gig economy are increasingly the norm. These are the usual run of articles from places such as The New York Times and Business Insider, giving us tips on how to be more productive at home, inviting us to take part in seven day productivity challenges. And sure, many people faced with the unfamiliar circumstances of working at home will appreciate these helpful pointers.
But at their worst, such commentators have produced headlines such as “What should we do with 1 billion hours of time? Australia’s COVID-19 Oppurtunity” and “The Coronavirus Crisis: A Catalyst for Entrepreneurship” . Despite being founded on sound economic observations, tonally these pieces come across as sinister expectations. Don’t forget that you should still be productive when working from home! You shouldn’t let this gift of free hours go to waste! If you weren’t already an innovator, then you have no excuse not to be one now! And I’m surprised that with the number of times I’ve heard someone mention Shakespeare writing King Lear during a plague quarantine, that no one has thought to mention poor Crusoe.
So, what exactly does Crusoe do with his time isolated on a remote desert island? Well, according to popular myth, he fashions the island on which he is shipwrecked into an Edenic tropical paradise. But what makes Crusoe fit so well with a productivity mindset is that, like many of us, he begins his isolation having “never handled a Tool in [his] Life” (59). Yet, by the time he leaves the island and writes his account (presented to us as Defoe’s novel), Crusoe is of the firm belief that “by stating and squaring every thing by Reason, and by making the most rational Judgement of things, every Man may be in time Master of every mechanic Art” (59). In other words, for Crusoe, finding himself with an excess of spare time was all it took to adopt the correct mindset of reason and rationality. In this way, he could complete any task he set his mind to.
Never one not to brag, Crusoe reiterates that “in time by Labour, Application, and Contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it” (59). And so Robinson Crusoe is filled with descriptions of Crusoe making tables and chairs, itemising his possessions four times a week, raising goats, getting into pottery, growing corn, and so on. There are, quite literally, several pages dedicated to describing how Crusoe bakes bread, wherein he remarks:
“[I]t might be truly said, that now I work’d for my Bread; ’tis a little wonderful, and what I believe few People have thought much upon, (viz.) the strange multitude of little Things necessary in the Providing, Producing, Curing, Dressing, Making, and Finishing this one Article of Bread” (100).
By any account, Crusoe wasted no time in providing for himself and ‘up-skilling’ while stranded. And it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to translate Defoe’s language into that of the “productivity” camp described above. But there is also an aspect to Crusoe’s experience of island life that is commonly forgotten from the popular myth. As often as Crusoe is rational, applied and kicking goals in the Better Homes and Islands game, he is also batshit crazy and quite clearly losing the plot.
When he first lands ashore, Crusoe quickly “found [his] Comforts abate” (41), realising that “[he] had nothing about [him] but a Knife, a Tobacco-pipe, and a little Tobacco in a Box” (41). How did he react? “This threw me into terrible Agonies of Mind, that for a while I [ran] about like mad-man” (41). And of course he would. You’re the sole survivor of a bloody shipwreck, mate. What then were Crusoe’s first plans after surviving this wreck? Not to take up yoga, but to “consider the next Day what Death I should dye, for as yet I saw no Prospect of Life” (42).
Perhaps, Crusoe was not always the highly motivated and productive individual we have come to expect. Perhaps, he too felt the same existential dread, uncertainty, and worry about the future that all of us have been experiencing during this pandemic.
It is, broadly speaking, an acceptance that it is okay in our extreme times not to feel okay, as so many of the “self-care” commentators writing against the productivity gurus want to emphasise. It sounds obvious, but perhaps many of us need reminding that living through a pandemic is an incredibly stressful experience. It might not be all that surprising then that amidst all this supposed free time, we don’t actually feel free at all. Or, as one headline put it:
“There’s no such thing as ‘productivity’ during a pandemic: working from home isn’t going to make this any less scary.”
Reading through some of Crusoe’s more extreme breakdowns, I can’t help but think he couldn’t have cared less about finally learning French. Throughout the entire novel Crusoe’s narrative never ceases to fluctuate between his better-known productive self and moments of absolute despair.
The most famous example of this occurs when Crusoe finds a lone human footprint on the beach. Knowing that the footprint is not his own, he can’t rationally account for how it appeared on an island where he thought he was alone. The encounter throws him into a fit and all he can do is retreat into his cave and cower. As night descends, Crusoe’s paranoia runs away with him and he imagines that the footprint has been left by the devil himself:
“I fancy’d it must be the Devil; and Reason joyn’d in with me upon this Supposition: For how should any other Thing in human Shape come into the Place?” (131).
Here, being rational and productive are the last things on Crusoe’s mind. But his fancy is no less compelling given his state of mind and actions. This is what so many commentators have been reiterating as we head in to yet another week of working, studying, maybe even teaching from home.
As Kasan writes in her article for Input, the more we obsess over productivity the more we ignore the genuinely distressing reality of a global pandemic for the sake of maintaining an upbeat and motivated philosophy of self-improvement. And this seriously risks sapping joy from the simple pleasures and relationships that we need to keep us grounded throughout this difficult time. Furthermore, as some economists have noted, the idea that we could be even more productive while working from home, although supported by research, is a disastrous expectation to have of ourselves during a pandemic. Not to mention that these researchers didn’t take into account the impact of one of the largest social and economic challenges our society has faced in modern history. But then again, how could they?
What we need to remember is that a pandemic is a pandemic, whether you face it in the office or from your front doorstep. At a stressful time like this, we should be kind to ourselves and reflect on what it is that we need each day to make it through. That might well be learning a new skill, or starting that project you’ve had on the shelf for years. It might even be work — if that’s your thing. Crusoe certainly needed his work to keep him occupied, as much as anything else.
But the point is, you shouldn’t feel like you should or need to do anything more just because someone else has it in their head that you were happy to be laid off, go home and watch Netflix. Definitely don’t feel like you should go away and read Robinson Crusoe. It’s a 300-year-old novel, one of the first in fact, that definitely shows its age. That is, of course, unless several pages about how to make desert island bread is your thing. Then by all means, go join Crusoe. He could certainly use a friend.
