Human isolation doesn’t sit well with most people. Even though social connections have often meant the fall of entire civilizations, we want to be close to somebody else. Now that we are in the new age of pandemic contagion with the COVID-19 virus, this is the first widespread disease in which we can exercise isolation as the primary preventative measure. In the days of Spanish flu and plague, sanitary practices were unheard of, and it was the man considered the Father of Hand-washing, Ignaz Semmelweis, who introduced us to hygiene as we know it. He found that midwives and doctors who washed their hands before assisting in delivery lessened deaths from puerperal (childbed) fever to about one percent of cases.
Of course, since his ideas were well ahead of their time, he was vilified and died in an institution in 1865 at the age of 47, after suffering a nervous breakdown and a hand infection possibly brought on by a beating by guards at the facility. Imagine: people thought it was not necessary to wash their hands after using the restroom back then, they witnessed a person dying from infection, and still didn’t get it. We still see ignorant people leave the bathroom without washing today, but our overall health keeps most infections at bay.
But back to social distancing. Many people are upset by the idea of not being with others. Sometimes one’s own family is a burden enough when having to spend extended time with each other. Topics are flooding social media about how to alleviate boredom, and I get to laugh at them.
You see, I have been subject to social distancing for years. I’m part of a population which is subjected to unexplained or ignorant rejection, because it’s always easier to walk away from a problem than it is to tackle and solve it. Meanwhile, the problem grows and doesn’t go away. That may be why solitary confinement doesn’t work well in the prison population; if your only contact with people is with those who want to shut you away, how does that teach anything but how to be alone?
In this case, being used to hours alone is helpful. As a child the teachers would sometimes sit me out in the hall, where my acute hearing kept me able to listen, but all the annoyance around me from the inside was left there. Sometimes it was a blessing to be separated from the bullies and ignorami.
Over decades I’ve been in offices where I had no window (14 years in a sub-level office, then a few in a cubicle in which I had to leave it to view the outside), and today I have a space where co-workers are on the other side of a high wall, but I have several windows and sun, and some privacy. Patience in this case pays.
Ever notice that cubicle setups often have people facing into a corner? All those time-outs as children must’ve prepared us for this scenario.
I can work independently for long stretches, and in the car or at home I can relax with no sound at all, almost as if I am in a living version of the movie A Quiet Place, but without the overly sensitive-eared killer aliens.
This period of isolation will pass, in weeks or so. I’m sure people will bust out with joy when it’s over, the bars will overflow and the malls may even see some shoppers again.
I’ll sit in my chair and be grateful to take my time getting back out there. After all, I have been prepared for this all my life.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 