2020 — WTF???

thoughts on the year so far.

I brought the 2020 new year in with friends in Sydney, Australia, after an absolutely ripper day in which we went to the pub in the afternoon in Paddington, Sydney, where Ben’s mum lived.

We met at the before it closed for the day and then went to a family friends absolutely stunning Victorian terraced home. In arguably one of the most expensive postcodes in the country. There we proceeded to have a BBQ and some more drinks. After we mossied on down to join the throng in Rushcutters Bay to bring in the rest of evening, first with the 10pm fireworks the the midnight one. Both signalling the end of the previous years and the beginning of the new. The evening was carefree, full of laughs, a scuffle, lots of food and some card games. It also had one of the most bizarre post-midnight experiences I have had. I often find there is an odd melancholy attached to any New Years eve once the count down is done and people continue to congregate and party even though we all know it’s the cliff-edge from the silly season turning the page to our resolutions and goals for the year ahead.

I linger on this point because in the space since that moment in time to where we are all now the world has changed so fundamentally it’s barely recognisable. I mean that quite literally, it’s as if the global community are all living through a movie. Time, location, wealth, none of these matters, it is truly the most poignant moment in my lifetime in which the whole world collectively experiences the same moment in time. Of course this is the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. Today is the 10th of April 2020. It is Easter Friday and I am sitting in my lounge room in London with the gorgeous sunshine pouring in. I am working, I am healthy (to a point as only a few weeks ago I was quite ill), and in good spirits. Which all things considering is a good place to be. I absolutely have not held this tone throughout the lockdown which is now in its third week. I digress though, the point of this entry is simply to document the frequencies I have felt this year up to now.

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Reaching back to January, Australia was in the midst of the worst bushfire season in recent memory. I have put my thoughts down about this in a previous post, but overall it was a harrowing moment to live through and devastating to those affected. It was a moment of national reckoning and being Australian I am glad I was there to move through that collective moment. Coronavirus at that time was still a thing that was affecting our neighbours in Asia, but our proximity meant it was a shadow looming.

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I enjoyed being in Australia during this period to be with Hannah as well as friends and family. But I was irritable and I felt restless been here. Also, for the first time in the past several years I felt a sea-change in all of our moods. It was like we were on the cusp of understanding we’re moving into a new chapter. In that we were growing up, reluctantly or if in full embrace, thing, moment and experiences were loosing the youthful playfulness and situations were tinged with a mature reflection in the moment. Gone were the big pissup’s for pissup’s sakes and instead it was a civil drinks or meals and then a dismissal of notions to kick into the night. Which only a few short years ago were a given. Don’t get me wrong, there were definitely big weekends or events; Chris’s bucks, Ryan’s birthday, the weekend the boys came down from Sydney, but they all felt a little tired. As if your favourite track that you listened to over and over again with enthusiasm was starting to loose its stick.

Although this attached a certain amount of nostalgia for the way things were I was ultimately very comfortable in this current trend. A couple years ago I suffered what I considered to be a disconnectedness from my peers, my work, friends for example. I felt that I was getting too old to continue trying to be the life of the party and that travel, partying, socialising etc ceases to become to primary focus and that I need to transition to another paradigm. This cam when I decided to buy a flat in London. It gave my energy and focus with an ‘all in’ intensity. I eased up on the partying from the level I was at and began to enjoy the moments were I did because it felt more like a special occasion. This has now gone 180 and I’m happy to make that the exception now then the rule. Do not get me wrong, I love the party, but I choose the circumstances.

This ties into the beginning of the post as I felt the same way when I was in New Zealand and Bali. In both places I was content by simply being there and did not feel the urge to chase the party. I enjoyed getting up early, having a slow morning, feel refreshed and chasing some exercise. After that I felt as I a had earnt a break and a drink, because the feeling of making it a reward after some graft made it sweeter.

This whimsical naval gazing has its place in current circumstances. Since we heard about Coronavirus, I have been one-step ahead of it. The reality of the situation became a stark reality on the return to Australia from Bali. Border control were waiting at at me in Melbourne asking where I had been and checking passport and boarding pass. The airport has a tension beyond that special tension only terminals have. There was a heightened awareness of the gravity of the situation coupled a subconscious racial profiling. Young Chinese in particular who tend to sometime wear face-masks anyway were looked at with increased scrutiny. When in Indonesia it was the same. I felt were was a bias toward these tourists and even some of the Indonesian people were quick to comment about the situation too — this was at the very beginning of February.

Text messages from airlines warned travellers from China and surrounding areas to report themselves and reconsider travel from the Australian airlines and later in New Zealand. We listened and watched with increasing concern as February gave way to March. It was of particular concern for myself and several others who had to travel long distances post my brother’s wedding after March 6.

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On arrival back in London the mood had changed dramatically. People were acting with caution and the streets were emptier. Changes moved swiftly up to the present situation of lockdown. This has a devastating impact on my employment chances as every opportunity was on hold or no longer viable. Add to this the weekend before absolute lockdown we celebrated a couple of our friends birthdays. The end result was that several people got incredibly sick — the conclusion is COVID-19 based on the severity and numbers, but we cannot know for certain until government testing is available.

Once lockdown was announced it took me a long time to properly digest and process the information and the gravity of the situation. Its now my conclusion that we have closed a chapter in our lives and have now moved into a completely new world were even after a vaccination is available life as we know it is going to something else. this isn’t a new conclusion of course, almost everyone feels this way and there are numerous public figures and commentators who have articulated this far better than I can. However, allowing it to truly seep in took some time. I tend to be stoic at the best of time but this really tested my mental health and fortitude as I was sick, not working and incredibly anxious about the future. Luckily fortune changed, I got better, I got work and I have been pleasantly surprised at how resilient our social institutions and people are a global community have responded.

Rather than anarchy we are seeing the magnitude of human compassion through the multitude acts of kind, empathy and caring. Of course there are outlier examples of people acting stupidly, but they pale in the face of the sheer tsunami of good will coming the over direction.

I am hopeful that we will get through this, things will change for the better and we will see that this is the great leveller, but also how much we rely on low-income workers and we need to treat them with respect, generosity and without the contempt that has become so standard in social discourse. Fuck the rich and greedy who sit in their mansions and profit like leeches and let’s truly embrace equitable change and realise how much we need depoliticised conversations around social justice and global cooperation.