Jargogled Impressions.

There is something to be said about the idea of staying home. A sense of ennui enters the mind as all options of going out dissolves into the vapors of the pandemic. We have entered week 4 of the social distancing guidelines here in Seattle, and most of us have adopted to the mores of working from home. It’s as if a new normal has set in with everyone now opening their video cameras to let others peek into their homes, at least as far as the camera goes within the rooms that now works as a working space. On Zooms even, a proclivity to demonstrate the identity is taking root with the customizable backgrounds. From Star wars, The Office, Beach posters, to meme-worthy screensavers – Zoom-ers are letting go of their earlier inhibitions to use the camera and are now actively seeking to enforce a coda around these meetings – that of everyone eating up the bandwidth to show their faces, their reactions, their unkempt facial hairs, their home attires, and their comfort with a camera so close to their faces. It’s all good – no matter which state of ennui you are in at home, bring it to the screens and let us see it.

Those tiled snapshots of Zoom windows with multiple faces peeking from those bite-sized squares are doing the rounds in social media. Startups, especially, are keen on showing their commitment and motivation to continue their relentless pursuits. The Zoom snapshots have, in a way, become a default PR mechanism to highlight that yes, we are still alive and kicking. So are the Instagrammers relying on the power of the platform to spread good cheer through these snippets of their personal, friendly get together with fam. As if saying, yes, we have adopted the new normal, at least for the time being. And we are proud to showcase it. I never knew the video camera on top of the laptops would come in handy.

The young are striving to make it appear as if nothing has changed. The pelotons and Zoom-based group classes have picked up steam as staying indoors have doubled up the need to stay active. With one eye towards the counter that tracks the globally affected population, and another on the office laptop, everyone today is re-discovering their inner epidemiologist. All corporate professions are reckoning their existential meaninglessness as the doctors and healthcare providers man the frontlines of this world war against a petite virus. And those healthcare workers aren’t less proud to show their commitment and passion in rising to meet the challenge. All power to them!

In the kitchen, new chefs are being born. Through family lore or through the online cookbooks, everyone is continuing to experiment on what they eat – only this time, they are also the ones making it. For now, those photos on Instagram of delicately carved meals with just the right amount of filtered light has stopped. Instead, the pictures have morphed into amateur chefs attempting to create something in their respective kitchens.

Outside, people go for a walk sometimes, when the weather permits. With their dogs, or with their better halves, the walks are a rumination on how the calmness pervades everything. The dwindling population of cars on the road seems to suggest that humanity has halted to a stand-still perhaps. And people lounging in public parks in broad weekday daylight suggests that a new form of work culture is in the offing.

In each conversation, at home or at work, everyone is asking how everyone else is. As conversations end, everyone recommends everyone to stay safe, as if we would not otherwise. The enterprise amongst us are striving to do something, anything, to help those in need. Numerous organizations have sprung up and are taking the lead on supporting the most vulnerable amongst us. Through monetary support or through DIY utility support, the ones with industry in their veins are attempting to dampen the curve of inequality.

The writers are having a field day. Magazines and newspapers are chock full of stories around the virus – informative, personal, anecdotal, data-centric, bookish, cultural, and sociological, the articles span the spectrum of the pandemic’s pall over the society.

The uncertainty around what comes next is dispiriting for some, and a nuisance for others. Depending on where they fall, the affliction from the social distancing varies. Partly subdued and partly reflective, a moment of reckoning surfaces often for those souls that are actively self-aware and are affected deeply about the ensuing crisis. Targeted anger, vindication, and disgust fills in the hearts of those that expected better of our civic organizations. For those with limited window to dwell and to ponder, the situation is dire and future bleak.

Worried about our jobs, our business prospects, our health, and our future, the mankind is in a state of limbo today. Purposely trying to carry on, and to sweep away the cobwebs of this uncertainty, we are trying to immerse ourselves in the rigmaroles of the day to forget where we have landed and how handicapped we are in front of a virus this diminutive and small.

Change is coming. As unprecedented as this epidemic has been across generations, a global event of this magnitude is going to bring out sweeping transformations in our political, technological, and societal lives. History is being made right in front of our eyes. Much as the Great Recession is still shaping the narrative around us in popular discourse, this epidemic is going to stay in our collective consciousness for years to come. It is going to impact how we make policies around health-care, how much we feel prepared for another onslaught of a contagion, how we work from home and can enable work from home, what we need to do to better prepare ourselves individually and socially to deal with something like this again. But nature is a great learner in addition to be a great leveler. One pandemic is always different from another pandemic.  As prepared as we can be in dealing with something like this in the future, we would continue to have surprises stored for us by mother nature. The preparation then, is to surrender to this reality, and get on with our lives. After all, that’s what we do as humans, don’t we?