My perspective on what we are living through at the moment.
Remember to stock up on compassion and kindness.
Ivalo Kønig Okking
There is no doubt that these are unprecedented times and we all have different ways to deal with what is happening around us and around the world. And where you are in the world right now may also very well affect how you are reacting. Different infection rates in different countries and different ways the Governments are responding.
I´m not a virus and contamination specialist, I´m not a doctor, I´m just a blogger with an academic background that has taught me to be critical of my sources and my references.
This means that what I write here is not about contamination and how you should deal with it. I leave that to the people who know about it and I follow the instructions of the Spanish Government, as that is where I am at this point in time.
I am writing about how I´m living, what is happening, and how I have gone about getting information, it is about how I see the human reaction to confinement and how it has affected me personally. It is not my typical blog and as such not meant as advice for you. Maybe my thoughts on this matter interest you, maybe they don’t or maybe this is just a bit of entertainment for you, if like me, you are confined to your home.
The process I lived from first seeing on the news about what was happening in China and the hype on social media, has gone from believing that it was all a bit exaggerated to this is serious. It took me some time to react.
It wasn´t until I began to look for information myself by sources I trust. Here I´m lucky because I have looked for information in different languages and different countries, which means I had good access to information. I googled people who made statements to know that they are who they say they are and I looked up their references.
This also means that I stopped reading texts and post on social media and WhatsApp, that I could not check. Yes, I´m afraid that if I could not find the person who had written it or there were no serious references to the statements they made, then I discarded the information.
A lot of very clever communicators who´s intentions I do not know, use very convincing styles of communication using words like scientifically, the doctors I know, according to specialist etc. This is where I would look for specific information.
I have stopped watching videos from religious groups that talk about the end of time, as I am not religious, nor do I believe this is the end of time. I have also stopped looking at videos that made claims how I could cure myself with blowing hot air from my hair dryer into my nose to kill the virus or how keeping my mouth wet at all times.
I do look at information from what in, my personal opinion, consider to be serious press, the governmental sites and Universities, in English, Spanish, Danish and a few in French and that is how I get my information.
I have seen many funny memes about the theme, that were created very quickly, and I have giggled and had fun. I do think it is positive that a health crisis like the one we have now can inspire creativity and I think humour is a fine way to deal with a scary situation.
So, after all my research I conclude that I do my confinement time happily, I know I’m doing this as a collective effort that will help us all. I do worry about the economic effect, especially here in Spain where there are still struggles from the after math of the economic crisis.
During my confinement I still work out 6 times a week, I eat healthily, and I have become much better at utilising my food, with practically no waste. I have to be creative with my cooking and with my training.
I have also taken a look at what I take for granted:
- Free movement (also internationally and especially within the EU)
- Unlimited supply of goods (I live on an Island and we shop a lot on-line and now the orders don’t arrive)
- Access to health care.
And as I have the habit of looking at the silver lining of things, here are a few:
- I have more time to teach my daughter how to cook
- She now runs to the opportunity to take out the rubbish (ha!)
- I´m allowed to walk my dog.
- Here on Menorca we are working as a community to keep each other safe.
Also, I find it interesting how we react, and CNBC had a very interesting article on that on the 11th of March where different experts on consumer and psychological behaviour had been interviewed, you can read the article here: (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/heres-why-people-are-panic-buying-and-stockpiling-toilet-paper.html)
What is suggested is that when we panic, we have like what I describe in a former blog as the amygdala hijack we are in a flight or fight mode and therefore we do not react rationally.
According to what Sander van der Linden, assistant professor of Social psychology at Cambridge University, says in the article from CNBC mentioned above, that when we panic we look for what other people do and the more we see of one behaviour then this behaviour is spread, as it is with hoarding.
“sometimes there can be a lot of value in social knowledge – from an evolutionary perspective, when we don’t know how to react to something, we look to others for guidance. If you are in the jungle and someone jumps away from a snake you automatically do the same thing but sometimes that gets highjacked and you´re told to do something that´s not the right thing to do”
Linden
From the same article Dimitrios Tsivrikos, lecturer in consumer and business psychology at the University College London, the reason why toilet paper has become an “icon of mass panic” is that when you panic you are irrational and in the supermarket people are looking for value and volume and that is why they are drawn to the large packaging of toilet paper.
Just to mention a couple of the descriptions of human behaviour in the article.
For me it is important to stock up on kindness and compassion, we all react differently and therefore I avoid judging other people´s behaviour or reactions.
I also think that there may be a portion of culture connected to the different reactions but that will have to wait for another time.
So far, my confinement time has just begun, and I have no idea how I will react on long term. At the moment my plan is to train as I normally do, just at home. Cook healthy food and follow other rhythms I have in my household to make everyday life feel as normal as it can during these circumstances.
I hope you are as happy as you would like to be and remember that it is free to be kind.
Best wishes
Ivalo