Inside

In how many posts have I come to the conclusion that “time marches on” recently? It seems that it’s becoming an almost cliché theme. It speaks to the powerlessness I’m feeling in effecting change to the path of my own life, especially since the beginning of the pandemic. With work, in which I’m being given tasks to do that will “be good for my development”, I find myself not wanting to do those things because for the time being, I don’t really want to develop. Not because I don’t want to get better at my job, but because I don’t find myself wanting for anything in my day to day life, am already more stressed than is ideal and much more angry than I would like to be over utter trivialities. The terrifying approach to coronavirus that the Westminster government is pursuing, and the fact that more and more I’m seeing people just flat out ignore the advice and regulation as it exists because it inconveniences them, fills me with dread.

A year ago, it was a loud and popular opinion that the governments in this country weren’t doing enough to control the virus. We had been through ‘eat out to help out’, a widely panned concept for how it encouraged people out and made it seem like it was a totally safe activity. At the same time, I was having arguments about how taking personal responsibility doesn’t mean making a decision every time you leave the house, but recognising that by pushing the boundaries of what is advised by those who have much more information you risk having to have deaths of those you either know or don’t on your conscience. By dismissing it as “just guidelines”, it shows a blatant disregard that those guidelines are there to mitigate the needless loss of life. No one is going to be perfect, but I instantly lose respect for people who actively choose their petty self interest over even trying to adapt.

And I can’t shake this funny feeling that coffee is making it worse,
And there’s no nap that will do me good, so much as stopping work

‘So I Don’t Know If I Need More Exercise or If It’s Just Adult Life but Is Anyone Else Basically Permanently Tired?’ by Luke Westaway

That incoherent rant in mind, I am worried. I have one Moderna vaccine dose in arm and I will very likely be fine. However, post viral fatigue, or long covid as the media have branded it, is no joke. The statistics on it are terrifying, and I really do not want it. I’m already permanently tired thanks to my baseline level of depression and anxiety. Coffee definitely makes it worse, but here we are.

But is this actually true? Am I worried about the reality of the situation outside my door, or am I worried about my imagined version of it. I am exhausted, and there are things that I have legitimate cause to be worried about, but in reality the situation probably isn’t that bleak. The numbers do have different meaning than they did this time last year, which makes it harder to quantify the human impact of the virus. Am I overreacting with my position that if you’re flagrantly disregarding the advice, even if you’re trying to mitigate it, you’re directly responsible for any death from this point? Probably.

Every time this comes up at work, or a stupid argument about code standards, or how I’m feeling like nobody cares what I do because I was shuffled out of the one team where I felt treated like a human being, I start half heartedly looking for jobs again. I mostly like my job, I mostly like the people I work for, and I mostly like the social conscience we as a company portray. It could be a lot worse. I just can’t help but think it could be better. I’m drifting through life without a particular direction, while also flitting back and forth between things like a hyperactive squirrel. For the first time, there isn’t a hard deadline for anything looming, and I just don’t care about anything enough to want to create that deadline for myself.

I’m just permanently tired, and irritable, and unable to concentrate. I’m listening to the same songs over and over again. I’m getting upset about other people having interests and social lives. I’m getting worked up over things that simply do not matter.

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis

Except in these changing times, I seem to be changing for the worse.

Note — I started here with a much more positive idea about how things are looking up. Rewrites seem to have kiboshed that positivity into full rant mode. I am actually fairly alright in and of myself, but weeks are long and there seems to be no end in sight, and with this comes a certain level of negative introspection. Stay safe, keep in touch, and take breaks if you need them.