We had very strict Covid restrictions in my country (France) back when it started. Going outside for anything other than walking the dog was complicated, you had to sign a form that said that it was an absolute emergency. Yet, some of my friends told me that those few months were among the best of their life. Some of us really don't need to go outside to feel fulfillment, just the confort of their home.
Covid reminded me how privileged I am to live where we do. While I'm reading stories about people in big cities confined to their cramped apartments, my life was actually improving. With lockdown and WFH, I didn't need to commute into the office every day and when I did travel, the roads were almost empty. Rush hour was surreal!
If I got bored, I could go for a walk and not run into a single other person. And with everyone trying to keep their distance, even the parks didn't feel crowded.
For me personally. I can't really see my friends, I can't really walk over to the coffeeshop or bar to work and get out of the house. Having a (large) dog means that I also have to leave the apartment several times a day to properly exercise him. In the last month, my apartment complex has had 3 cases of COVID self-reported, and while they are all apparently self-quarantining, it doesn't make me want to return any time soon.
I’m not in US (and neither the person you asked), but I felt very nostalgic when covid situation only began in my city. It wasn’t a lockdown, only an advisory statement and a common fear of unknown. Empty streets, almost no cars passing by, which I could count on my fingers from a balcony back then. I wanted to just walk the city and feel it. Now that it got back to normal, it pushed me back to my apartment. Because when it’s “normal” I rather feel like a bug in an engine full of whirring cogs.
in NYC i would try to walk everywhere. just a great time in the morning and back home to contemplate diff things or work through solutions. now w/ covid i'm out of the city and in the burbs temporarily, but thankfully there's a park nearby that i can stroll too.
one thing that was interesting was that i had traveled to another country a few months after NYC went to lockdown (so i was basically inside all day). after 2 weeks in quarantine i walked around the new city for the whole day and was suuper sore the next day, which surprised me. i think we take for granted the benefits of it.
It's different for everybody. In my 20's my apartment was where I slept and bathed and that's about it. The city was great because there was always something going on and the energy level is high. All that energy fed me in some way.
In my 50's it's the reverse. I know who I am and what I like and the things that make me get up and be excited about the new day are now mostly internal. Being around a lot of people drains me. I've spent decades figuring out what I love and my home contains the stuff that makes me happier than anything outside (with the exception of really great restaurants).
I hate saying it because I know it was really hard on a lot of people, but during the COVID lockdown days, I was happier than I've been for a long time.
> At what point do we say "Fine, stay inside and live your life as a hermit, but the rest of us are returning to normal."?
Has this not already happened? Where I live all covid restrictions have been dropped, sports games are at full capacity, masks optional everywhere but public transit and hospitals, and so on
I mean, I was being a little hyperbolic when I said I stopped going outside completely. I actually still played sports throughout High School, but just felt that the majority of my social interaction was through the computer.
During COVID is the first time I really stopped seeing other people (other than my wife and kids) and I actually enjoyed it. I have my own yard and house, so I do go outside on the occasion still, and make sure to get the mail each day. Some days I sit on my porch in the morning, if it feels nice. I do body weight exercises and yoga and I am having a full gym built in my basement.
That said, I still don't see many other people and I don't feel like my social needs are lacking.
Think COVID has caused many of us to reflect on life, and how choose to resume it now that the situation has improved.
Working from home for so long definitely removed a social element from my life, but I've replaced the time I would be commuting with exercise and time outdoors, which has been a massive life improvement.
It really depends how you define freedom of movement too.
For some, there's more happiness and freedom of movement during strong, compliant social-distancing measures, if you feel safe going outside whenever you feel like it for exercise, and like the shops are relatively safe to go to because people are taking a lot of care.
Compared with if you're justifiably afraid to go outside where other people are mingling densely and without masks, while openly stating their attitude is that their unknown neighbours' health (yours) is just not that important, preventing spreading to you is not something they put any care into because they don't believe it's worth it, holding dense parties that host super-spreaders, and packing into shops and pressing up against you when you go there in a way that makes you feel like you're risking your life to get food, in a way that would be completely avoidable if only other people cared.
If happiness and freedom of movement is the high ideal, it still doesn't point towards one clear policy during pandemic, unfortunately.
The first few months of covid for me was getting the massive backlog of things I needed to do done at home. It was fantastic to feel like I actually had a balance in my work and home life for once.
I think it's context dependent. I did two months of quarantine isolated in a 500sqft apartment and experienced slowly deteriorating mental health culminating in a mental breakdown. Now, I'm in a 1200sqft apartment with two close friends, a patio, and a dog. I am happy as ever and crushing work from home now that I was able to find a sustaining environment.
While I've been following all Covid-19 related news and keeping track of the numbers with near morbid fascination, I've found that being in lockdown has made me happier. It has also given me perspective on life.
As cliche as it might sound, I've realized that what truly makes us happy is family, friends and time to devote to hobbies. I've been chatting with my family everyday, calling friends, playing board games with my wife. I'm producing music again, learning new things again as opposed to just being "productive".
I used to order in food 3-5x a week. Now I'm making all meals from scratch and really diving into what makes good food taste, well, good.
I haven't bought anything except groceries in a month and honestly, I haven't even missed it.
I really don't know how I'll approach the world post-Covid-19. The thought of going back to the old life and routines seems a little absurd now.
Same, I mean we didn't really go out as a rule anyway, but we would go into town for a stroll, shop and a beer or two, or the cinema, little things like that.
We're all right, but it's slowly wearing us down. But there's people who are seriously worn down by it. I for one am glad I'm not alone, I'm not sure I would be in any good mental state right now if my girlfriend hadn't moved in two years ago.
I can really imagine the torches and pitchforks more and more. Because my country didn't do enough during the summer last year, cases spiked after people went back to work and school. The measures and carefulness of people failed because things kept going on for too long.
And now the government has set a curfew, which messes with the only time I actually go out during the day (taking the dog for a walk just before midnight). It feels like we're being punished for something other people did. They're still handing out thousands of tickets a week (although those will likely all be voided because a court decided the curfew was introduced on the wrong grounds), they're still breaking up a hundred parties a week, and there's still millions of people that go to work every day even though they can work from home.
At the current rate, it'll take the rest of the year before we get to an 80% vaccination rate. I mean I hope things will return to a semblance of normality by the summer (last year the number of cases went down sharply after flu season finished), but I'm afraid we'll be stuck for another year at least.
> School, homework, part-time job, college, study, full-time job... it never ends. For many of us, covid is the first taste of freedom we ever got. It was eye-opening and delivered some serious perspective.
Don't you have vacations? A whole month away from work or school every year should have given people that same perspective.
I think many people are having the same experience with covid. It's all doom and gloom on the news, but we are spending more time than ever with our families. It has been the best year of my life.
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