Surviving and thriving

As I noted a fortnight ago (incidentally, the last day I had any contact with an actual flesh and blood human being - thanks hairdresser Andrew!), in many ways I am particularly well-adapted to what we shall euphemistically call 'the current situation.'

I'm really lucky to be able to work at home - and to have a nice home (with garden) - in which to work (and relax). I'm lucky to be really busy with work, and feel that I'm doing something worthwhile. I'm really lucky to be able to get food delivered from Beanies and even beer from Abbeydale.  I don't need to invoke a 'good excuse' to leave the house. I'm happy to stay here, keep my head down, and pretend as far as possible that everything is normal. That's my survival strategy.

If I start to think about the use and abuse of emergency powers, and their long term effects; if I start to think about what will happen to higher education and my job and the students and potential students I work for; if I start to think about what will become of a society where we're now all primed to police one another and see everyone as a potential threat; if I'm confronted with the government rhetoric and statistics that underpins all this, then I will become a panicking, quivering, knuckle-chewing wreck who is no use to anyone.

I have stopped reading any news websites. I never did subscribe to any social media. I still occasionally look at blogs in the hope that they will provide a little light relief, a little glimpse of life beyond the current panic, or of finding positives within it. My blogroll is my reading list, and when a blog quotes government figures (available in so many other places to anyone who wants them) on deaths and infections two days running, sorry, it comes off, no matter how much I might have enjoyed it previously.

I don't subscribe the idea that it's some kind of moral virtue to immerse onself in misery and keep up to the minute with bad news.That might be a coping strategy for some people, and I respect that; but I am not one of them. I am deeply uncomfortable with making a drama out of a crisis. I'd rather just quietly get on with doing something practical, if I can. And luckily I can - at the moment 170 people's futures (and more immediately, their peace of mind) rest on my ability to design and co-ordinate alternatives to their end of year exams and presentations.

So please, fellow bloggers, keep the funny and inspiring, the everyday and the mundane, coming .... And if you must wallow in fear and misery, judgement and drama, then that's your prerogative, but I'm afraid you'll lose this reader.