Alone or solitude?
The visit of covid-19 has forced many of us to have the alone time we so often say we crave. Many of us are used to spending a significant portion of our time with other people. If, as is true for me, one has a service job one likes to do one’s best to be helpful to others. Yet, at the end of the day most of us are glad for some relaxing time with family, friends or with ourselves.
I am intrigued with how affected I and others are by social distancing. Covid-19 has mandated that we allow significant social distance with each other. I am spending time with most friends and clients via telephone, face time and email. Even if a few individuals do come to the office we are practicing maintaining social distance. After each client leaves I do my best to sanitize any surface they have touched thus eliminating both any potential contamination and also symbolically wiping away any traces of their presence.
I am very conscious of the fact that in these United States we often keep prisoners in solitary confinement for long periods of time. Most states now have laws limiting the amount of time one can keep a prisoner in solitary confinement but very creative prison staff find ways to let prisoners out for a short time and then violate them for breaking some minor prison rule and put them back in solitary confinement. In any bureaucratic system it is easy to find a rule which has been violated.
I am also conscious of prisoners of war who are sometimes put into isolated cells or cages and those who, throughout the ages, have been isolated in the midst of social life. These untouchables experienced life much as those who are living in a domestically violent or potentially emotional, sexual or physical violent relationship. There may be nothing more lonely than being alone with another person(s). Some of us have been guilty of being physically present with friends, family, partner, or colleagues without being emotionally present. Most of us have seen the cartoon of the wife talking while the husband is reading the newspaper or vice versa. Most of us have been the parent, partner, friend or child who has been the one not present or the one experiencing a facsimile of a person but not the person.
Covid- 19 is the first disease which has resulted in the creation of mass untouchables. Lepers and certain others have, throughout, history been synonymous with untouchable.
Perhaps one of the many lessons to be learned or relearned during the visit of the Covid-19 virus is the powerful act of choosing not to be present to ourselves, others or mother nature. We may want to consider putting down our cell phones, tablets, computers, books, newspapers, brooms, cooking utensils or any other barrier to being present with others. We may want to consider, even now, being present with store clerks, post office clerks, or anyone else we have the privilege of being with, even if only for a second. Strangers are a state of being having nothing to do with shared history or lack thereof. We are all in need of knowing that we are not invisible; that we count.
Being alone is a state of being during which we are not present to ourselves, others or mother nature. It is only when we have the intention and courage to be present that we can also experience either solitude or the blessing of being with another.
Written March 31 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
The visit of covid-19 has forced many of us to have the alone time we so often say we crave. Many of us are used to spending a significant portion of our time with other people. If, as is true for me, one has a service job one likes to do one’s best to be helpful to others. Yet, at the end of the day most of us are glad for some relaxing time with family, friends or with ourselves.
I am intrigued with how affected I and others are by social distancing. Covid-19 has mandated that we allow significant social distance with each other. I am spending time with most friends and clients via telephone, face time and email. Even if a few individuals do come to the office we are practicing maintaining social distance. After each client leaves I do my best to sanitize any surface they have touched thus eliminating both any potential contamination and also symbolically wiping away any traces of their presence.
I am very conscious of the fact that in these United States we often keep prisoners in solitary confinement for long periods of time. Most states now have laws limiting the amount of time one can keep a prisoner in solitary confinement but very creative prison staff find ways to let prisoners out for a short time and then violate them for breaking some minor prison rule and put them back in solitary confinement. In any bureaucratic system it is easy to find a rule which has been violated.
I am also conscious of prisoners of war who are sometimes put into isolated cells or cages and those who, throughout the ages, have been isolated in the midst of social life. These untouchables experienced life much as those who are living in a domestically violent or potentially emotional, sexual or physical violent relationship. There may be nothing more lonely than being alone with another person(s). Some of us have been guilty of being physically present with friends, family, partner, or colleagues without being emotionally present. Most of us have seen the cartoon of the wife talking while the husband is reading the newspaper or vice versa. Most of us have been the parent, partner, friend or child who has been the one not present or the one experiencing a facsimile of a person but not the person.
Covid- 19 is the first disease which has resulted in the creation of mass untouchables. Lepers and certain others have, throughout, history been synonymous with untouchable.
Perhaps one of the many lessons to be learned or relearned during the visit of the Covid-19 virus is the powerful act of choosing not to be present to ourselves, others or mother nature. We may want to consider putting down our cell phones, tablets, computers, books, newspapers, brooms, cooking utensils or any other barrier to being present with others. We may want to consider, even now, being present with store clerks, post office clerks, or anyone else we have the privilege of being with, even if only for a second. Strangers are a state of being having nothing to do with shared history or lack thereof. We are all in need of knowing that we are not invisible; that we count.
Being alone is a state of being during which we are not present to ourselves, others or mother nature. It is only when we have the intention and courage to be present that we can also experience either solitude or the blessing of being with another.
Written March 31 2020
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
RSS Feed