Self-Isolation Advice: How (Not) To Survive Coronavirus Quarantine
Genuinely, I‘m cringing so much I could conceive my colon creeping right out of my ass crack, right now, and I’ve despised alliteration since my early-twenties. Ever since spoken word artists showered me with their animated and often misunderstood diatribes to love and life. Alphabet raps and misty morning meadows half way into the first stanza of some snotty notebook. But the snot doesn’t belong to the author. No. It belongs to one of their kids and the author is in their mid-twenties and they should know better. Some might also say they should have known better when the question of conception arose, but they were feeling emotionally mature at the time, and who are we to judge. They’d been feeling emotionally mature ever since they started writing poetry back in high school after mum was diagnosed with something or other and their friends started telling them how strong they were. Well, extinguish the camp fire and put those fucking bongos away, I’m about to go off on one.
Did you know the average attention span of a pair of eyes means an online paragraph should be no longer than three short sentences, otherwise the ‘reader’ might begin to feel a bit put-upon. A bit like they’re partaking in hard work. The Goldfish Conundrum, a term we use to refer to something that refers to human beings.
Goldfish. Yup, the way we interact with the world and the devices that we use to do so has now reached a point where we can be referenced to with terms like ‘the goldfish conundrum’. So thank you to those who have made it this far, even if you just skipped to the picture. I like a dedicated soldier. It’s got so bad that some of the most renown bloggers even write and recommend one sentence paragraphs.
A one sentence paragraph, imagine that.
I know what you’re thinking, and probably not thinking: “Cut the shit Rhodes, get to the point.” Well, the problem with that, is that there is so much shit to cut. Everyone is locked in a box because of an apocalyptic cold and they possess the means and inclination to broadcast what they’re getting up to. The internal monologue is becoming less of a background noise and more of an amateur production. Their ideas on things are everywhere. The world is hardly shining right now.
It was much better when everyone was outside or at least had the option to be outside, but they’d rather have a white-knuckle grip on an xbox controller -the steering wheel to nowhere. Sainsbury’s is selling petrol at £1.04 per litre, that’s what you looked like when you were 10, and in a few years time we may or may not be lucky enough to look back at all this and say ‘I’m surprised more young women didn’t die if 10 pushups is a display of good health’. 10 pushups with the form of an 8-year-old malnourished ballet dancer, at that. Then there’s something to do with ‘I give you a color and you show me a picture’ or ‘here’s ten things I did with your mum and one of them is a lie, but which.’
I get it, we’re all bored, and being locked in whilst the outside world is locked up is, well, testing. Our ‘Deep downs’ must be having light-shows of uncertainty right now, because we don’t really know what’s going to come of this. And once again, the lowest common denominator seems to take the spotlight. Another fucking tasteless version of Imagine. Jeez. “Careful Rhodes, careful not to exclude.” I get it, I’m sorry. If you do thirty push-ups then less people can join in. That’s exclusive. Or you might become responsible for inducing a negative self-image which harbors a lack of self-worth. Or lets cut the fucking cake open at the waist line and just come out and say that there might just be a largish chance that... never mind me. Have some photographs of celebrities not wearing make up because they’re at home.
Every day is something new. It’s happening fast. At first I laughed it off. The gym here was open, and Boris is just Boris so whatever the UK got hauled through was only ever going to be the sad bi-product of dribbly incompetence. No way that would reflect the actuality of it! But then, after a quiet moment with my thoughts and a few push-ups, I guess it does. The human race actually has a reason to be concerned right now (one it’s actually aware of).
If it gets through this, I’m concerned about the feedback loop we’re leaving for ourselves. With all of this documentation of who we are when we don’t have much to do -when we’re forced to spend time with ourselves. When the options outside of our own internal resources are limited. We’re hardly living through the rewriting of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ right now. I never wanted to imagine being able to look out at the populace and conclude ‘mundanely hysterical.’
Have you ever thought of it like this: A few people just realised they can put an entire country under house arrest. Ssssssh. Stay inside, save lives.
The next thing I know is poor Boris is in intensive care, and people care, and 5G might be killing us all. The virus must somehow be emitted from masts and in to our brains and then we can’t breathe and then we die. So set fire to the masts and save the human race. I’m one for keeping an open mind, but fuck. But, it’s possible. When stuff like this happens you realise that you don’t really know. There’s a counter argument for everything, and its really down to either what you believe or what you can be brought to believe.
Stay inside, save lives. Stick a hashtag on it and impose it under a photo of you being a good soldier. Perhaps. Perhaps it is the answer in the long run, but why was cocooning the vulnerable not an option first? Shutting down the entire world has lasting effects, I would imagine. Cornering off the elderly and pre-existing health conditions might have a little less. Not everything is going to be back up and running like it was after this, and there are select people who have a say in that. It’s not going to be the same. And for fuck sakes... we’re not going to be better-connected, spiritually better-off creatures with heightened awareness because of this time of reflection. Drop the Disney and redefine reflection. Twat.
Maybe we would, as a species, benefit from taking a tally of what is absolutely necessary. Sadly, I feel that right now we’d sacrifice public libraries in favour of saving Netflix and Deliveroo. There’s a lot of shite out there that could probably disappear, but I’m not one for burning books or genocide, so I let it be, apart from the occasional poke every now and again if something winds me up like ‘here’s a selfie of me in my beautiful industry, share yours to share how beautiful it is.’ Drop the Disney and redefine beautiful.
The NHS is beautiful. Scarred long past being physically attractive and beaten within an inch of its life, but beautiful for it. Its that down to earth kind of beauty. The kind of beauty that the privileged and sheltered shudder at. The true cog-work of the gutter. The kind of beauty that keeps late night conversations interesting all the way in to old age as supposed to becoming resentful because you start to look like you’re melting when the botox shots give out and that’s all there really was to you. The kind of beauty that you’re not so desperate to post selfies in your swimsuits with because quite frankly they’d ruin dinners, but you are so goddamn happy to just be there. That’s the NHS.
It’s April 8th and I’ve been dipping in and out of this for the last few days. Just a little venting tool every now and again. A bit of fun when things seem to be getting serious or a little too ridiculous. These are unnerving times, and I’m far too low on the food chain to be offering anything in the way of advice that shouldn’t be scoffed at. So I guess, despite my ranting, take care of yourselves. Keep an open mind and pray if you have to. And in the words of Berryman:
Did you know the average attention span of a pair of eyes means an online paragraph should be no longer than three short sentences, otherwise the ‘reader’ might begin to feel a bit put-upon. A bit like they’re partaking in hard work. The Goldfish Conundrum, a term we use to refer to something that refers to human beings.
Goldfish. Yup, the way we interact with the world and the devices that we use to do so has now reached a point where we can be referenced to with terms like ‘the goldfish conundrum’. So thank you to those who have made it this far, even if you just skipped to the picture. I like a dedicated soldier. It’s got so bad that some of the most renown bloggers even write and recommend one sentence paragraphs.
A one sentence paragraph, imagine that.
I know what you’re thinking, and probably not thinking: “Cut the shit Rhodes, get to the point.” Well, the problem with that, is that there is so much shit to cut. Everyone is locked in a box because of an apocalyptic cold and they possess the means and inclination to broadcast what they’re getting up to. The internal monologue is becoming less of a background noise and more of an amateur production. Their ideas on things are everywhere. The world is hardly shining right now.
It was much better when everyone was outside or at least had the option to be outside, but they’d rather have a white-knuckle grip on an xbox controller -the steering wheel to nowhere. Sainsbury’s is selling petrol at £1.04 per litre, that’s what you looked like when you were 10, and in a few years time we may or may not be lucky enough to look back at all this and say ‘I’m surprised more young women didn’t die if 10 pushups is a display of good health’. 10 pushups with the form of an 8-year-old malnourished ballet dancer, at that. Then there’s something to do with ‘I give you a color and you show me a picture’ or ‘here’s ten things I did with your mum and one of them is a lie, but which.’
I get it, we’re all bored, and being locked in whilst the outside world is locked up is, well, testing. Our ‘Deep downs’ must be having light-shows of uncertainty right now, because we don’t really know what’s going to come of this. And once again, the lowest common denominator seems to take the spotlight. Another fucking tasteless version of Imagine. Jeez. “Careful Rhodes, careful not to exclude.” I get it, I’m sorry. If you do thirty push-ups then less people can join in. That’s exclusive. Or you might become responsible for inducing a negative self-image which harbors a lack of self-worth. Or lets cut the fucking cake open at the waist line and just come out and say that there might just be a largish chance that... never mind me. Have some photographs of celebrities not wearing make up because they’re at home.
Every day is something new. It’s happening fast. At first I laughed it off. The gym here was open, and Boris is just Boris so whatever the UK got hauled through was only ever going to be the sad bi-product of dribbly incompetence. No way that would reflect the actuality of it! But then, after a quiet moment with my thoughts and a few push-ups, I guess it does. The human race actually has a reason to be concerned right now (one it’s actually aware of).
If it gets through this, I’m concerned about the feedback loop we’re leaving for ourselves. With all of this documentation of who we are when we don’t have much to do -when we’re forced to spend time with ourselves. When the options outside of our own internal resources are limited. We’re hardly living through the rewriting of ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ right now. I never wanted to imagine being able to look out at the populace and conclude ‘mundanely hysterical.’
Have you ever thought of it like this: A few people just realised they can put an entire country under house arrest. Ssssssh. Stay inside, save lives.
 |
| Photo by Hello I'm Nik 🎞 on Unsplash |
Stay inside, save lives. Stick a hashtag on it and impose it under a photo of you being a good soldier. Perhaps. Perhaps it is the answer in the long run, but why was cocooning the vulnerable not an option first? Shutting down the entire world has lasting effects, I would imagine. Cornering off the elderly and pre-existing health conditions might have a little less. Not everything is going to be back up and running like it was after this, and there are select people who have a say in that. It’s not going to be the same. And for fuck sakes... we’re not going to be better-connected, spiritually better-off creatures with heightened awareness because of this time of reflection. Drop the Disney and redefine reflection. Twat.
Maybe we would, as a species, benefit from taking a tally of what is absolutely necessary. Sadly, I feel that right now we’d sacrifice public libraries in favour of saving Netflix and Deliveroo. There’s a lot of shite out there that could probably disappear, but I’m not one for burning books or genocide, so I let it be, apart from the occasional poke every now and again if something winds me up like ‘here’s a selfie of me in my beautiful industry, share yours to share how beautiful it is.’ Drop the Disney and redefine beautiful.
The NHS is beautiful. Scarred long past being physically attractive and beaten within an inch of its life, but beautiful for it. Its that down to earth kind of beauty. The kind of beauty that the privileged and sheltered shudder at. The true cog-work of the gutter. The kind of beauty that keeps late night conversations interesting all the way in to old age as supposed to becoming resentful because you start to look like you’re melting when the botox shots give out and that’s all there really was to you. The kind of beauty that you’re not so desperate to post selfies in your swimsuits with because quite frankly they’d ruin dinners, but you are so goddamn happy to just be there. That’s the NHS.
It’s April 8th and I’ve been dipping in and out of this for the last few days. Just a little venting tool every now and again. A bit of fun when things seem to be getting serious or a little too ridiculous. These are unnerving times, and I’m far too low on the food chain to be offering anything in the way of advice that shouldn’t be scoffed at. So I guess, despite my ranting, take care of yourselves. Keep an open mind and pray if you have to. And in the words of Berryman:
‘Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.’
(From Dream Song 14)
Next time, I’ll be dissecting the crawling sensation beneath my skin and how I spent a day pulling
ticks out of a stray dog. There’s a metaphor in it somewhere. Until then, shout in my direction if
you’ve anything to say, I’m accepting all kinds of tone.
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