(Pandemic Diary - day 26)

From my journal: 24 March 2020 (Tuesday)

I was going to start out with a comment about how I’m getting past my compulsive need to check for the latest news about the pandemic. But on my way here, I got sidetracked yet again by exactly that, and it was only by sheer force of will that I broke loose and got to the point of starting this entry. I don’t like this about myself, and I’m fighting it, but I have to admit that I’m still very susceptible, that I’m not over it yet.

I understand the reasons, or at least some of them. This is a major thing that’s happening, it will have some large effects on my life, and the nature and extent of those effects are largely unknown at this point. So it’s quite natural to be anxious for news, to try to learn how the whole thing is going to turn out.

It’s also a fascinating thing to watch, fascinating like a train wreck, fascinating like Westworld or Game of Thrones. It’s a real life drama that we each have a role in. But we don’t know the plot, and we get our lines a day at a time.

And then there’s Facebook, that window into the character of some people you either don’t know, or only thought you knew, or that you know things about now you wish you could un-know. That’s the most disturbing one, and maybe the hardest to look away from.

I’ll just try to keep fighting that urge to look, or at least to look so much and so often.

But…

…there’s a role for these windows, and it would not be good to ignore them. There are likely some profound insights to be gained by watching how people react to this stressor and it would be silly to ignore them.

I just have to learn to look without being pulled in so deeply that I can’t get out.