JUST A TRIM

In the middle of the global pandemic which has practically brought the entire planet to a standstill, finding the new normal has become an almost daily challenge. Communicating with people, trips to the shops, and exercise have all been made to exist within much tighter boundaries and each of us have had to find our feet amidst the new rules.

But there’s a huge amount in the world which has ground to a halt so despite there being so much of what we all recognise, day to day routine is very different.

My hair, just like everyone else’s, was continuing to grow, seemingly oblivious to the world around me. Day by day, millimetre by millimetre, my hair just blossomed and became far too unkempt. The time eventually came for me to do something about it.

Now I know that a great many people have been forced to resort to the same course of action as I was because a haircut is more than just the act of shortening the ‘do.

We all wear our hair in the way we do because we like how it looks and it can make us feel better about ourselves. It’s an outward display of who we are and how we want to be seen by the world so being forced to forgo the method of control we have on our appearance can be terribly upsetting.

When we walk away from the maestro who’s sculpted and styled our hair, we can feel amazing because we feel sharp, we feel that we look the part. The way we wear our hair affects how the world sees us so when it’s been worked on under our guidance, we end up where we want and present our best self. But take away the cutting and suddenly, that image that we’re presenting begins to decay.

The sharp lines of a tight haircut become more ragged and without trying, the well put together image you want to put forward is starting to fray at the edges. Ends split and styles fall and that can make us feel that the same is happening to us everywhere else.

Maybe that’s part of the reasoning for the protests in the US where people want to flout the lockdown? They can’t express themselves in the way that they want and it’s that lack of personal choice that boils the blood. Any kind of impact we can have feels so badly overdue.

Our hair is a part of our ‘plumage’ to the world and being stuck without the chance to preen can feel uncomfortable but there are always options available should you wish to take them.

Everyone should stay inside and follow the guidance of the experts during these tough times and remember that even though the hair issue is a pain, the COVID issue would be so very much worse. It’s only hair after all.

It will grow back.

I KNOW THIS

Went back to work today. I’ve been working from home for the last two weeks but having the chance to get back on site has been oddly needed. I parked the car, psyched myself up and made my way for the entrance.

Now normally, I would have just scanned my badge and made my way into the building but thanks to the delightful pandemic that’s sweeping the world, things are different. Now, rather than the usual wander into the building, there’s a new process similar to the queuing you do at a busy theme park. The snaking line led to a tent, which takes everyone through a screening area where we have temperature checks.

It’s great that the company take the health of everyone on site so seriously and the greatest hardship which came from this was me having to walk a few more steps but as I was heading into the building, I couldn’t help think about what the new walk into the building reminded me of.

It wasn’t that it was wildly invasive for us to walk into the building but the first thing that went through my mind was the above.

And that’s the point of the post.

How often do we look at things that happen in the world around us and have the way we see those things affected by some oddly similar yet off kilter idea. The walk into work wasn’t really like that but that’s where my mind went first of all. No damage done, kind of made me laugh.

But what happens when something like this isn’t viewed like Total Recall but instead a much darker idea?

The news has stories of the Police having to speak to members of the public who aren’t following the guidelines concerning social distancing on a far too regular basis but if your first thought on this fact was guided more by the authoritarian society of the very same film and you could start to see the things outside as being the actions of a pulverising and controlling state looking to curtail the populous.

Each of us is guided by our experiences so we can’t completely distance ourselves from possible biases but knowing that we have to make an effort to view each event fairly can mean that we don’t end up sending our opinions off on a wild tangent.

Could you imagine being told every day that a single group of people, be it a religious group, a political party or an ethnic minority, are responsible for all of the evils in your life? Could you imagine that you’d be able to objective when assessing what may or may not be going when all you’d ever heard on a particular group had been negative?

We all have our opinions on things and every day, those opinions surface and can nudge us in directions that may not be right. Thinking we know one thing because it looks and feels like something else is a decent place to start but only ever seeing things one way can mean no-one ever grows.

Stay safe everyone.

ALONE

Well this last week has been a bit of a struggle.

I developed symptoms consistent with Covid-19 so was forced to work from home, to stay away from everyone I live with and quite tightly curtail the day to day life I led as I entered isolation.

Now the overall picture of my time locked away is really nothing more than I was spending time in the office at home rather than going to work and then I was pretty much living the spare bedroom so as not to potentially infect everyone else.

Now I’m feeling much better now so everyone can relax but I couldn’t help but consider the topic of isolation and how it can be a point of exploration for characters in more ways than first thought.

Now I was confined to basically three rooms for a week so in the grand scheme of things, not much of a hardship but suddenly being chained to rigid rules of movement and contact with other humans, thereby stopping me doing so much that I just took for granted on any day, suddenly gave me the irrational desire to go and do all those things which burned like a fire.

I couldn’t watch TV with my wife and mother in law. I couldn’t go downstairs. I couldn’t go and see my mum. I couldn’t go to work. I couldn’t sleep in the same bed as my wife. I couldn’t hug my wife.

I wasn’t locked in a cell without anything to see or do. I had my tablet so could look at all kinds of things on the interweb and I had a book to keep me company so it wasn’t like I was buried alive, but in my mind, the sudden loss of contact with the world that I was familiar with was hugely magnified and I was acutely aware very quickly of what I couldn’t do. The suffering was born from knowing what I’d lost and that there was nothing I could do about it.

No doubt we’ve all read stories or seen films or TV shows where the protagonist is imprisoned. There are examples of both lawful and wrongful incarceration and then how characters are able to confront their sudden loss of liberty. How do they come to terms with their lot? What do they have to overcome in the new life they have?

But isolation isn’t solely incarceration.

We can feel isolated despite being surrounded by hundreds of people. We could feel utterly alone despite speaking with hundreds of people. We can be isolated by actions of people around us or we could feel isolated because we feel that no one understands who we are and what we could be going through. We are more than capable of building  prisons for our minds so putting a character in a cell isn’t the only way that they can be separated from the crowd.

The world over today, the reality of isolation is something that we all have to deal with in some shape or form so I think that we all have a much deeper understanding of the realities of what we all do but more importantly, we can see just how a small change can really shatter the calm normality we all know and love.

Maybe that could start to give some kind of explanation why there are so many people apparently happy to ignore the advice of the experts and not stay home during the current pandemic?

Nobody wants to be isolated.

No-one wants to be alone.

NOW DO THIS

I was in the middle of writing this weeks blog post, a very involved and majestically wonderful post which was going to pull on the heart strings and make everyone think.

But then …………….

The Prime Minister goes on TV and announces that there are going to be massive changes to the way we all live our lives thanks to the on going pandemic, and just like that, the realities of the world override everything.

I’ve been on the computer making sure of details for work and what the changes announced will mean for all of the people I work with so the original blog post was quickly pushed to one side.

We all have things we enjoy doing, places we enjoy going, people we enjoy seeing but reality should never be overlooked.

Now is the time to be responsible. Now is NOT the time to just ignore the seriousness of the threat posed by this virus. We all have to do our part so now is the time to follow the guidance of the medical experts and not just imagine we know better.

Let my blog post for this week serve as a symbol for what we should all be doing. When something serious comes along, we stop what we’re doing and behave the right way.

Be safe everyone.