Life in Lockdown

A Medium meme

Life in lockdown

My friend 🦄 Chris Hedges passed this along, and I won’t break the chain.

I wrote an introduction here yesterday, giving the ten thousand metre view of Britni Pepper.

Let me take you closer to my little cottage, right here in this moment.

What have you missed the most during this lockdown?

So many things are lacking in my life right now, but one hits me harder than most.

Travel. April and May have always been my best time for international travel. It’s a good time to travel, because it is good everywhere. Not summer, not winter. Comfortable.

Not this year. I had a week on the Gold Coast, followed by two weeks trekking in Japan, all lined up, and I watched in some dismay as the world closed in on itself until I had to come up with a good reason just to leave my own house, let alone zip around the world.

September and October offer another window for venturing overseas, but I suspect the world will not be open for business quite as much as usual. I may take some time within Australia, or possibly New Zealand.

What is the best thing about being in a lockdown?

Stillness. There aren’t so many things to do or plan or prepare for. I don’t have to make so many decisions. If I want to, I can sit quietly in my chair and read, a cat curled up on my lap, and I can do that all day long.

I meditate every day: half an hour at dawn, half an hour at sunset. The Dalai Lama was once asked, “Isn’t that a lot of time each day? What happens when you have a busy schedule? Do you skip the meditation?”

He replied, that twinkle in his eye, “When I have a busy day, I must meditate longer.”

Meditation gives me energy to deal with the day. I don’t need it as much in isolation, but I still meditate.

As an aside, I love the Dalai Lama. He has wisdom and humour and refuses to take himself seriously. But he has something about him; when he walks into a room, everybody knows it.

What has been the worst thing about being in lockdown?

This took me by surprise, though you think I could have seen it coming. I became depressed and apathetic. Perhaps not so much at the lockdown, as at the failures of leadership, particularly in Washington DC.

America, so long the global leader in times of trouble, was not only asleep at the wheel, but the chaos and nonsense coming out of the White House were putting lives at risk.

I have many friends in America, and I worry over their well-being when the regime head is a clown.

Who would you have liked to host in your home during the lockdown and why?

George Clooney is welcome in my house at any time. Day or night.

Uh, and his wife, the urbane and graceful Amal Alamuddin, noted human rights lawyer. We could have such long and philosophical conversations together, just we three.

What have you discovered about yourself in the lockdown? When it comes to having time for all those tasks I’ve set aside for a rainy day, I have the time, but by the point I’ve made myself a cup of coffee, read a book, and cuddled the cat, it’s time for bed, and nothing gets done. I am a world-class procrastinator, and tomorrow I shall put my name down for the club.

What did you eat (or drink) the most during the lockdown? Coffee — of course — and I’m ashamed to admit it, but some days have seen ice cream for breakfast, and not just one demure bowl.

I should have been humping a pack over Japanese mountain passes and eating delicious and healthy Japanese regional cuisine, but no, it’s been comfort food all the way. Don’t judge me, please; I’ve been doing that for myself for weeks, and I’m sick of it.

Apart from sleeping and working what activities did you undertake the most during the lockdown? Reading. Not Medium, despite having the marvelous opportunity, but all those books I’ve been piling up for later. That’s solid life progress, isn’t it?

And binge-watching. The new season of Better Call Saul came out and in between weekly episodes I caught up with the old seasons, to try and get all the characters and subplots straight in my head.

This prequel to Breaking Bad is so rich and densely woven that every fresh viewing brings out more that I missed the first or second time around.

Will you come out of lockdown heavier or lighter? Heavier. Apart from missing out on the wilderness trekking I’ve been training for, all my usual exercise options have become either unavailable or too crowded for safety.

Hills in Melbourne aren’t as plentiful as they might be, and when I find my favourite hiking trails full of hard-breathing humans whipping past well inside the social distance limits, that’s no fun at all.

What resource has helped you the most during the lockdown?

Philosophy. Mindfulness. Wisdom.

I have a library full of books to dip into. Eastern sages, Plato, Plotinus. Commentaries. These are not books to read at a sitting, but books for dipping into and reflecting. A new find has been Sri Anandamayi Ma, an extraordinary woman whose life and teachings have been recorded in fine detail. Her humour, her practicality, her understanding are a refreshing change from the more terse and dry offerings of the mostly male sages of history.

She died two years before I was born, but her teachings are timeless. I open my heart to let her words in, and they give me such comfort in these difficult times.

Careful with the translation. She spoke in Bengali, and references many Sanskrit words. When it all comes out in English, it can be misleading. She is not speaking of Judeo-Christian concepts, though some texts give that impression.

What is your top tip for other people in lockdown right now?

Find a guru, a mentor, a teacher. There are so many online courses being offered at no charge right now. There are so many wise people at leisure, and free to interact with others. Find someone who can shine a light on a path to improvement.

How has lockdown changed you?

I am, more than ever, conscious of the frailty of our species. A tiny inanimate collection of molecules has brought us all to a standstill. All the talking, all the technology, all the global resources of our people, and we hunker in our bunkers.

We shall overcome, of course, but in the meantime, this is the year of more death than usual, and I feel it keenly.

If you were to leave a ‘message in a bottle’ for the future, what would you say?

Be still. Listen. Learn. You have wisdom inside yourself, you just need to find it. Ask, “What would a wise person do?” and there you are! Wisdom. Follow the advice of the wise person you have discovered inside yourself.

One last question, where are you?

Melbourne. Victoria. Australia. We are dealing with the virus better than most, I think. Only eighteen cases nation-wide in the last day.

Unfortunately, seventeen of those have been in Victoria. So not out of the woods yet.

So. That’s me, right here, right now.

Britni

🦄 Chris Hedges asked me to answer some questions about life during the lockdown we have been experiencing worldwide this year. Here is Chris’s interview about her experiences. Go read and see how she has felt hope during this shared human experience.