Betting on zero

We’re veering dangerously close to the musings portion of these writings. 

An absolutist statement: any good writing is at least one of two things: original or relatable. The jackpot is the completely original story about some universal experience. We’re all in isolation together here, many of us totally alone in a four-walled enclosure, trying our best not to totally lose it. I had intended to just share good vibes, but the truth is it would be disingenuous to completely ignore the loneliness and anxiety that comes with the times in which we live*. 

A question: is this the end? I hope it isn’t, but what if it is? Wouldn’t you at the very least quit your job if it was the end of the world? The same job you were falsely assured needed all those face-to-face meetings and brainstorming sessions and conversations on approvals and handshakes and markers touched for no good reason and sweaty palms rested stressfully on boardroom tables? Wouldn't the job be the first thing to go, if this really was the end**?

And what if it isn’t the end? In a world that’s likely to be economically crippled, with ‘good families’ losing wealth in stock market collapses and real estate crunches, losing jobs in weak labour markets during a low-spending economy, and some, worst of all, losing lives, shouldn’t you be happy to just have a roof over your head? Shouldn’t it just be enough to have a job that’s as secure as it is? And one that doesn’t require you to enter an office full of potential sneezers and coughers. And one that’s still solving some sort of a problem some people face. One that’s paying you.

One that’s been a difficult go from the get-go. One that’s sucked so much wind out of you that even before this virus rode into town, you worried that you’d taken your once bright professional future and shanked it between its ribs; now, of course, you can blame the virus for its breathless death. Maybe the problem is you.

Maybe you’re so entitled that you expect things to work out on average, and when they don’t you throw a little hissy fit and cry for mommy. Or maybe this is precisely the kind of negativity that needs purging right now. Maybe that’s what you should use all this alone time you’ve suddenly been forced to have, to become less negative, kinder to yourself, to eat better, work out more, really get in touch with your inner self, do some yoga, eat avocados, calm down.

Maybe all this stuff we expect from ourselves is just too much. Maybe we should take as much as our lives afford us to build as happy a life for ourselves and those we love as we possibly can. Maybe that’s what all this is for: we must be happy in the moment, because that’s all we have. 

And also leave a legacy. 

And earn enough to feel safe in times of crisis like this.

And fall, hopelessly, madly, permanently in love.

We don’t deserve convergence. The human mind is incapable of converging at a single point; it’s bound to unravel. Or at least in times of great anxiety, its unravelling is inevitable. These are futureless times. These are times when time itself ceases to mean anything. When three-dimensional space ceases to mean anything. Now there are no windows, only frames, no roads, just arteries and veins running empty, synapses fatiguing, your senses running out. I know this is probably just today, but I can’t imagine a future with any sort of convergence. If I can’t see that for us in real life, how can I end this in a cogent way? I can’t. It must, like life, just stop.

*In fact projecting that sort of image would be incorrect — for anyone reading this and feeling the same way, yes, terrifying day, I feel the same, it’s ok.

** On a side note, I get a glimpse now of what it must be like being terrified to step outside your house, afraid you might get killed just because you went out. While not the same thing, it must be terrifying to be in the middle of a riot.