The Recluse in Time of Crisis.

One of the things which tend to happen to people who live alone and have little social contact is that they cultivate routines. Routines add structure to a life lived in a relative void, and they can become surprisingly important.

So what happens when circumstances like the present crisis deny them some of those routines? They have to find alternatives; they have to learn to be more flexible, and being flexible is a practice to which they have become strangers. And so they’re forced at least a little way – and sometimes a long way – outside their comfort zone. That’s what’s happening to me at the moment.

Being forced outside your comfort zone isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and for me it isn’t too difficult. I happen to be lucky enough to have a decent sized mind which has always been reasonably good at solving problems, but even for me the resultant difficulties can become more than irksome. And suppose I didn’t have that faculty. What then?

And let’s not forget that routines can easily cross the line and become essential behaviour when subjected to the OCD tendency. Being denied the ability to operate under the thumb of OCD can also be a good thing for certain people, but for others it can be very stressful.

And quite apart from all that, there are other issues at stake here such as the reasonable presumption that extroverts must suffer more than introverts from the denial of social intercourse. I wonder whether the government realises just what a complex set of psychological issues are being raised in the present climate. I’ve even wondered whether they have a team of psychologists on hand to advise them in policy making.

I very much doubt it. I expect a team of psychologists would spend most of their time arguing with each other. Psychology is not an exact science, and I suspect that western-style culture has probably become too multi-faceted and decadent to take psychology into account anyway. A complex environment requires complex solutions if everybody is to be satisfied, and I doubt there’s the will, the time or the resources to do that. And so we have one rule for all, and I suppose that’s how it has to be.

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I cleaned the inside of my fridge and one of the kitchen cupboards today. I also paid my credit card account, ordered some bird food online, ran around like a scalded chicken keeping the bird tables stocked, went for a little drive around the lanes, and swept a lot of arboreal debris off the road when a surprisingly strong gale hit. Am I happy?