Making the Best of It

April 23rd, 2020

About a month ago I made a post talking about the entire situation with COVID-19. Needless to say, things have escalated quite exponentially since that entire situation. We now have to wear masks for everything, stores have some strange policies, and the life we had once known has been shelved away for the time being. It’s likely that this entire situation will last well into early 2021. I might not even be able to graduate at UT. I don’t even know if we will be returning to campus, but there’s nothing I can really do about that. What I can control are the things that I have at my disposal, and this includes learning as much as I can and diving deep into some of the most interesting topics to me.

I’ve been pretty fortunate to say that my family and I have been relatively unaffected by this entire situation. I’m privileged in the fact that I live in a good home, have parents who still have jobs, and am able to survive without much complaints. Sure, I can make the first-world comment about wanting to see my friends or just exploring the country, but the situation is horrible right now, and I need to acknowledge that. Thousands of people are dying while I relax in my room, watch Netflix casually, and finish some homework assignments on the side. However, this entire situation has made me surprisingly productive. Being holed up in my room usually results in me doing pretty much nothing, but I have been surprisingly active these past few weeks, and I feel kind of horrible to say that.

This part is to the majority of us who are holed up in our rooms complaining that we have nothing to do. I’d say that we should make the best of it. Now what I’m saying sounds like the parallel scene in Parasite, where the rich lady talks about how the “rain was such a blessing” (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about.) I acknowledge this and by no means am I calling this pandemic a “blessing in disguise.” It’s simply horrible. Nevertheless, I think we can do some genuine good during these times. Connect with relatives, check in with everyone, learn more about yourself, and dive deeper into things that you wanted to learn more about. Solve the problems in your community and try to do things that you normally wouldn’t have had the time to. Wherever you are, try to find the silver lining in this mess, and it might be worthwhile. Find creative ways to engage with you friends and experiment with some crazy ideas. Investigate that one weird conspiracy theory, google up some weird things about how Latin died out, and read about philosophical issues with artificial intelligence. Whatever it is, this gives us all a chance to refresh and at least take the time to reflect on ourselves and figure something out. None of us who are fortunate to be doing nothing should have an excuse for at least not trying something new and out of their comfort zone, especially when it can help people in the long run.

I hope that we can get through this situation as soon as possible. I’m sure everyone feels just the same. Hope all goes well and we find a damn vaccine to bring an end to this all!