Pandemic Solitude and Existential Crises

Byrichard
Reading Time: 2 minutes

During a recent walk I thought about existential crises and the pandemic. I thought that it’s a shame that we spend so much time speaking about depression rather than looking for a new reason for being, a new existential identity, or goal in life. We treat the search for a new identity, due to the pandemic as if it is a depressive moment but I think this is wrong.

The pandemic has changed whether we can socialise, and how we socialise. It has changed whether we agree to be indoors, or whether we prefer to be outdoors. It also shapes whether we want to be near crowds or away from them.

I was looking through photos on my phone last night. Since 2018-2019 I haven’t done much socially. The last event was the World XR forum in Crans Montana, before going to a Geneva film festival. Since then it has been around five years of solitude. Three of them are due to the pandemic.

Too many people have been brainwashed into thinking “once I fall sick with COVID once I’ll be fine”. Others have been told that this is the new normal, and they just accept it. Yet more people think “oh, but I need to work” or “but my children need to live a normal life.” The result is that for people, like me, who want to work towards COVID zero this has become an improbable aspiration, and that’s where the existential crisis comes in.

When I looked through my photos I saw that people with their own families, spouses, children etc, continued to live normal lives, despite the pandemic. My social life, on the other hand, has been destroyed, hence the existential crisis.

I could easily call it a depressive event. I could easily say that this is depressing, and that I’m in a depression, but the truth is that I am not. I had an existential crisis, and it would have been labelled as a depression by some, but it wasn’t. I always got up in the morning, studied for two or three hours, showered, ate, went for my two to three hour walks and continued to focus on the present. I was never paralysed by depression or stuck with a feeling of futility.

I redefined what I read, listened to or watched, to avoid being reminded of what I am currently incapable of getting, but having said that I grew to be happy with what was possible. Walking, cycling, studying, and recently running.

Today is Valentine’s day and I have no expectations or desire for love. We’re in a pandemic, and I have learned to enjoy solitude, and the more I am exposed to reminders of what life could have been, the more numbed I become.

And Finally

The point of this point is to encourage people to stop thinking about depression all the time, with all of its stigma and more. I think we should embrace the exitential crisis for what it is, especially during a time when so many of us have to reinvent our “raison d’être”. Our reason for being. We have had to redefine who we are, and what we want out of life, to cope with pandemic life. Life is not back to normal yet, and I refuse to accept what it is now, as normal, hence the existential redefinition.

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Day Eighteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Plumbing and Scuba Diving.

Byrichard

Plumbing and scuba diving are not unrelated. If you understand o-rings and pipe/hose connections then you’ll be fine. I dismantled a system, cleaned it, and then reassembled it, checked for leaks and then ran the tap to see if all was well. Once I saw that everything was indeed well, I struggled to place the drawers and then moved onto the next issue. 


My website was hacked again so I am now writing this blog post in the day one app, rather than directly to the blog. During a pandemic it’s frustrating to find that your website is hacked because life is already limited without adding new issues. 


Facebook and Twitter have still not been reinstalled on my phone. I see no reason for them to return. The beauty of not having either on your phone is that it takes longer to post something negative, so a negative thought, is abandoned .





Last night I watched two episodes of iZombie and for the first three quarters of the episode I thought I had found something that I would enjoy watching during this pandemic. Since then I’m not sure. We’ll see how it goes when I watch an episode or two today.


To Shop Or Not to Shop


I have the nagging feeling that I should go and shop today, so that I can skip the need to go tomorrow or the next day but when I check the fridge I have food for at least three days, and even a fourth. I think I still have a week of reserves so shopping is not urgent.


Is it worth going through the maze in front of the shop, to disinfect my hands, to grab a number, and then to go into the shop and get some drinks, and leave.


Back in the good old days, before the pandemic, people such as myself would think “I want a bottle of Apple juice” and we’d walk to the shop, buy a bottle of apple juice and it would take a minute or two. The same behaviour today would see you queue for half an hour. I hate queuing and because the rate of infection is not going down as fast as I would like I am happy to stay isolated.


In normal circumstances if I had seen that the sink was blocked I would have gone to buy a plunger and I’d have had some fun playing with it. Of course my goal would have been serious, but humour is useful in surreal times. “How was the pandemic for you?” “Surreal, but nice”.


I like writing blog posts because it’s like having a conversation. You start with an idea and you develop it, and you start to play and have fun, and by the time you finish writing a blog post you have cheered up. The solitary nature of this pandemic is negated for a short moment.

Day Twenty-Three of ORCA in Switzerland – The Chernobyl Fire
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Day Twenty-Three of ORCA in Switzerland – The Chernobyl Fire

Byrichard

In normal times a forest fire in the Chernobyl exlusion zone would attract attention and environmentalists would actively speak about it. The world would pay attention. Due to the pandemic the news story is low on the agenda.


I mentioned that a coffee shop and a pet shop had reopened on Monday and this morning I read that markets would be allowed to take place. Instead of the usual 160 stands, there would be just 30. In articles When reading other articles I saw that there was a mention that in order to be more confident that the virus was slowing down there would have to be zero transmissions for 14 days or more. We are still far from that today.


A gradual decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases in Switzerland


I’d rather sacrifice for two or three weeks now and preserve summer, than be too hasty, and lose the advantage we seem to have at the moment.



Click the image to read that story from Radio lac. According to Dider Pittet, speaking on RTSInfo we would need two and a half million masks per day to protect people in Switzerland alone. On a global scale many more masks would be needed.


Phone Addiction


Of course during this period when people are stuck at home, unable to socialise in person they are meant to turn towards the phone and use messaging and social media apps to share news with friends and family. Some people use this as an opportunity to say that people are all the more addicted to their phones than before.


I find the opposite is true. Yesterday I forgot my phone at home when I went for a walk and I could easily have gone back upstairs to get it but I didn’t because A) I didn’t need it and B) my walk was going to be short.


I should go for a walk now but I can’t really be bothered. I don’t want to avoid people. I don’t want to overcome my fear of dogs. I would love for this pandemic, so that I could try something different. I’d like to go for a bike ride but if I do that I need to be careful not to stray too far and I still need to avoid people.


The main reason for going out is to get some sunshine.


For exercise I have Zwift.


if you need a reason to stay indoors and to self-isolate watch the video below.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuzP-uLctYE&feature=youtu.be

Silent Walking and Garmin Instinct Battery Modes
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Silent Walking and Garmin Instinct Battery Modes

Byrichard

It rarely happens. I rarely forget my airpods at home, and when I do I usually turn around to get them. Yesterday I didn’t turn around. I went for my walk anyway. You might think “so what?” and you’d be right to. It doesn’t change much. I usually listen to podcasts and audiobooks, rather than music. I like my walks to be intellectually stimulating, as well as physically good for me.

Running Up and Down Like a Yoyo

Normally when I forget something I run back up the stairs, sometimes two or three times. Other times I would walk home, before starting the walk again. To leave the airpods at home is unusual. Sometimes I leave them because it’s raining and I don’t want them to get soaked, but that is rare.

Airpods fit easily into pockets. They fit so easily that I blogged about carrying two pairs in winter.

Noise Pollution

when you walk alone, and you forget your airpods you’re stuck with your thoughts, and the landscape. You hear the noise pollution from the nearby motorway, sounds of construction from the locations where grass once grew, that is being tarmacced over. People say that it’s important to listen to nature but between the Léman and the Jura there are roads everywhere, as well as cars, trucks, buses and tractors. It’s hardly quiet. To walk mindfully is to notice all the noise pollution. You don’t miss out by listening to podcasts and audio books.

Mindfull Cycling

I never listen to anything when I’m cycling. The noise of the wind is too loud. I also want situational awareness. I want to hear the sound of cars or other things approaching. I want to be focused on what I’m doing.

Driving in Silence

Many years ago I would listen to music when driving, and I wouldn’t dream of driving in silence. Eventually, because I drove such short distances that I would hear ads but no songs, I stopped automatically turning on car radios. Now I can do entire drives in silence. When you drive an electric car it’s funny to drive in silence, because at a traffic light you can hear things, as if you were not in a car.

Experimenting with the Garmin Instinct Solar

My Garmin Instinct Solar is at least two years old. You know that I have more watches than I have wrists so I struggle to decide which watch to wear on a daily basis, especially when I’m unhappy with some aspect of my life. That’s beside the point. I decided to put the Garmin Instinct Solar into max battery mode which turns off phone connectivity and heart rate monitoring.

When not fully charged the battery goes from 18hrs of endurance to 39 hours of endurance. My theory is that it will use so little energy that it should charge during the daily walk, rather than discharge in this mode. In theory a watch could be strapped to the bag and last forever in this configuration, especially in summer.

By using the Garmin Instinct Solar in “ultratrac” mode you still get step count, gps track, tempe connectivity, cadence and more. You can still see that you were walking for an hour and a half in 4°c at a cadence of 111 steps per minutes for a distance 8.58 kilometres.

Walking isn’t Sporty for Sports Trackers

If you go for walks like I do, fitness trackers by Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi, Apple and others see it as a stroll, even when you’re walking with a heart rate of 100 bpm because of your walking pace. As a result it doesn’t matter whether you’re tracking HR or not. This is liberating because it means that the sports watch that you’re using to track a walk doesn’t need to be on your wrist, tracking HR. It can be in a pocket, on your belt loop, or even strapped to your bag straps facing the sun to charge as you walk.

If you’re not worried about heart rate you can wear Casio step tracking watches instead. They’re less invasive. They track your steps, and that’s it. No HR, no sleep, no standing and more. It just tracks your steps, and that’s it. You can wear the HR capable sports tracking watch when you’re running, cycling or doing other sports where you need that functionality. The rest of the time you can wear a “normal” watch.

What it Replaces

The Garmin Etrex SE is excellent in terms of battery life and it’s easy to swap batteries but it’s big and bulky and requires a large pocket to store it. The Garmin Etrex Solar is also interesting but it costs 270 CHF and I don’t think you can swap the battery. This means that it’s fantastic for summer, when it’s nice and sunny, but mediocre in winter, especially if you’re walking for a few days in heavy rain.

In theory the Garmin Instinct Solar isn’t great in several days of rain either, but it does track steps, temperature and more. it gives you a more comprehensive data set, wit temperature, step count, and the usual data. It’s also much lighter.

And Finally

I’m fine, walking without air pods and a podcast or audiobook to keep me company. I have also slowly weaned myself off of wearing two sports tracking watches. If Garmin, Suunto and Xiaomi respected walking as they should, then wearing their watches all the time would make sense. The truth is that Vo2 Max doesn’t care about walking, so unless you’re running or cycling, you can wear whichever watch you’re motivated to wear.

By strapping a Garmin Instinct Solar to your bag, rather than your wrist, for walks, you still get altitude, temperature, step count, speed, distance and more, but rather than 20hrs of battery life you end up with 79 when the watch is fully charged, and more if the sun recharges the device as you walk.

Day 43 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Caught Outdoors During a Thunderstorm

Day 43 of Self-Isolation in Switzerland – Caught Outdoors During a Thunderstorm

Byrichard

Today I was caught outdoors during a thunderstorm but rather than run to shelter or rush home I continued taking a timelapse video of some flowers. According to the apps we were meant to get some rain at 1800 so I expected it to be short lived.


This didn’t stop my clothes or my bag from getting wet but I was wearing hiking trousers and I wasn’t worried about the shoes. I didn’t expect anything to be soaked through and I did prepare to run home if need be. By the time I was ready to run the rain was stopping so I took out the phone and waited, and tried to capture lightning.


Mud and Walking

Mud and Walking

Byrichard

I go for walks, runs or bike rides every single day, whether it’s rainy, windy, snowy or a heatwave. As a result of this I often walk along routes where mud forms. Sometimes I come home from walks and my shoes are spotless, thanks either to a drought, or paradoxically due to the rain.


Recently we had snow and it was cold so my shoes were relatively clean. I could come home, stomp a few times and my shoes would be clean. Other times, like the last two days I have found that the mud is sticky and hard to remove. It’s dry enough to behave like clay, rather than mud. It gets stuck between the studs that stop you from slipping. I tried skewers, running water, snow banks and most recently a brush that I keep in the post box, in the locked section. I don’t want to come home and find that the brush has been stolen.


I could simply get some slippers, and keep those in the post box, for when I go for walks, and for when I come back, but the problem of muddy shoes persists. If I don’t remove the mud then I need to change shoes twice when I head out for a walk, and twice when I get home. Four shoe changes per walk.


I am annoyed. We are in a pandemic and I feel uncomfortable for walking indoors with muddy shoes because, as an adult, if someone comments on mud, I have to avoid making a mess, from that moment forward. Not to care would make me a sociopath.


I’d like to add some contemporary context. We are in a pandemic. Millions of people are living with long COVID. One of the simplest ways to avoid catching COVID is to wear masks indoors. Everyone in the building looks at me strangely for wearing a mask, and yet they see me run up and down the stairs. That’s right, I don’t walk, I don’t struggle. I run. I use the lift twice a week, because of shopping. The rest of the time I run up and down the stairs. Everyone else takes the lift, whether for a single floor or not. I wear the mask as I run. It doesn’t bother me in the least.


My muddy shoes bothered at least two people. Mud is an ordinary part of rural life, and if it bothers people then a proper grate, and shoe cleaning setup is required.


No one has muddy shoes, but me, because everyone else uses their car to do things, whereas I do most of my activities by walking from home. This means that the car journey will not see mud fall from my shoes into the space beneath the pedals, or in the boot. I go straight from walking in mud to the building.


My old school had shoe scraping pieces of metal. In a previous age having muddy shoes was normal so society had solutions. Today driving is normal, so muddy shoes are an aberration.


There is a cruel irony in all of this. Cleaning mud off of shoes takes much longer than cleaning a stairwell. I know because I have to hoover my apartment almost every day when it’s muddy, and hoovering muddy floors takes seconds, whereas cleaning shoes takes minutes.


I wish that we lived in a society where people wore masks indoors during an airborne pandemic, rather than caring about a little mud. I’m especially frustrated because no one but me runs up and down the stairs, so no one but the cleaner sees the mud. It’s a problem because a cleaner complained once, in five years.


I miss the freedom of living in a house, where I didn’t have to worry about muddy shoes in a hallway. I miss pre-pandemic life, where I would take the car to do things with people, rather than alone. I miss pre-pandemic times, when there were advantages to living in society, rather than just disadvantages. I miss group activities, and the friendships that formed from life pre-pandemic, pre-fatalism.


And Finally


My walks are about exploration and getting away from cars. Cars never slow down when you’re walking by the side of the road, so walking on the muddy side is safer. I also walk where it is muddy because I’m lonely, due to the pandemic, and my struggle to find work, and the effect it has had on my confidence. I walk where I walk because it keeps me from feeling depressed.


If I crossed single people, or if I crossed people that walked single file, during the pandemic, then I wouldn’t have developed this habit of avoiding people. Living in solitude is easy, until you think about what life could be like, out of solitude.


I like my walks and my activities. I like exploring and taking photos. I like seeing the changes from day to day, week to week and season to season. I like looking at what new books are available.


If social media was about social networks, rather than stigmatised as addiction, then I would be making new friends via Twitter, Mastodon, FaceBook and other networks, during this pandemic. As they are not I have learned to be in solitude.


It’s the lack of reward, from using social media, that has led me to blog again. When we blog we invest our time. We invest in learning to write, to think, to focus and more. We could even go so far as to say that writing is time spent being mindful. I enjoy blogging. There is a chance that no one will read what I write, but as I have said, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation with myself, through the written word.

A Walk During Cow Rush Hour

A Walk During Cow Rush Hour

Byrichard

Yesterday I decided that I would start my walk by going along a dangerous bit of road, at the start of the road. The idea behind this is to avoid being endangered by selfish car drivers when I’m fatigued. It’s better to put up with their dangerous behaviour ahead of a walk, rather than after it.

I Don’t Want To Give Up Walking Locally

I spent time thinking about walking, and avoiding cars, and I came to the conclusion that I no longer want to walk across a bridge. Every time I walk across that bridge I see cars driving too fast and to close to other people, as well as myself. One day someone will be injured on that bridge. The bridge is barely wide enough for one car to drive by, and cars often play chicken with each other, and play Russian roulette to see if they can get away with running the gauntlet without hitting each other.

there is a good bridge just a few meters away that pedestrians could use safely, but it’s made to look as if it’s on private property so I stopped using it. That farmer has a vineyard. He recently planted bushes to mark his land but in doing so he has forced people to walk on a busy road, rather than in the grass. We could cross the road but because the pandemic hasn’t ended, I prefer to be across the road from others.

The Safe Walk

I can leave the village I live in, on foot, along a wide road with good visibility. By walking along this road I can see cars coming from far away and they have plenty of space to deflect to the other side of the road, to show some respect. I can also flee into the grass without too much trouble, should I feel the need. I have a lot of room to get away from cars that are driven by people who never walk.

The rest of the route is nice. I walk up through a village, go slightly beyond it, and then I turn right, and then I walk along a weather worn road towards some fields where cows spend their days. Yesterday I counted up to 11 herons in the field with cows and another field nearby. The beauty of this route is that few people walk it. People like to walk along two paths, and I use a third. I walk right after lunch, on a regular basis, because that’s when the walks are quietest.

Blocked by Bovine Rush Hour

Yesterday I was blocked from continuing onwards by the cows. They were being transferred from one field to another and to do this the road was blocked. I could have pushed my way through but I didn’t mind having to wait a few minutes, whilst the cars were migrated from one field to another, ahead of milking.

Long Distance Walks

One of the challenges I face is that I don’t want a short 3-4km walk. I want an 8-10 km walk and in order to have such walks you need to walk between villages, and along busier roads. Nothing is built for people who want to walk from village to village so it’s for us to find routes that are not too exposed to car traffic, and especially dangerous road segments. This road segment is very dangerous. Cars go along too fast, and there is nowhere for pedestrians to shelter. There is a smaller bridge here but it seems to be on private land and there is a metal chain to block access if you come from the village. If this bridge was open to pedestrians and cyclists then walks would be much more pleasant, and a lot less dangerous.

Danger comes from cars not slowing down, and not letting others pass safely. The other danger comes from people not deflecting to the other side of the road to avoid pedestrians when there is no reason not to.

Mobilité Douce With Blinkers

There is a pedestrian mobility site but as with every other mobility body it looks at cities rather than the countryside. It looks at making walking popular for people who already have pavements, side streets and more, rather than to connect villages. The more dangerous it is to walk from village to village, the more likely people are to use cars. Switzerland has invested millions in cycle paths, and yet those cycle paths go through car parks, and in summer the cycle paths along the lake become pedestrian paths for the car drivers who parked on the pedestrian paths.

You don’t encourage people not to use cars, if you make it dangerous to walk or cycle between villages. Policies and decisions are taken by people who live in cities and towns, rather than villages.

For more than a decade, but especially since the pandemic lock downs I have seen the need for walking paths that connect villages, without cars or other vehicles. Walking and cycling routes should be safe and pleasant for walkers. Walking between villages should be a pleasure, not a gamble.

And Finally

If I walked once or twice a week I wouldn’t feel the way I do. it is because I walk along these paths every day, and I am exposed to the danger on a daily basis. It’s since they put in some bushes that I feel in danger. Until those bushes were put in I was in danger crossing the bridge but I was safe before, and after. Now I’m in danger walking to the bridge, and from the bridge, by a farmer’s choice. What was a safe and pleasant route, became deadly.

Walking is the simplest, cheapest, and lowest impact sport we can do from home, without using a car. As a result infrastructure should be put in place to make it possible to walk for 10 kilometres without having to expose ourselves to walking by dangerous road sides. The safer we make walking, the less we will have to deal with the nuisance of cars.

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