- The view from Ground Zero
By: Raja Ahmed Saeed
Minutes melt into hours, hours melt into days and days into weeks, it is a sad, sad day when your own beloved abode feels more like a bastille. Friends are but a distant memory and happiness is fleeting…These are all overly-dramatic thoughts that run through every privileged teen’s head who has finally learned that spending time with themselves is the worst punishment of all, but all jokes aside this quarantine has brought out the best and worst from within us and has presented all of us, especially the young generation, with a whole new set of trials and tribulations. As an O-level student it was very anticlimactic to have the exam which according to everyone our life’s success is, or rather was, dependent upon ceases to happen, yes we have all been given alternatives; however nothing can make up for the months of debilitating anxiety and wanting to absorb each and every word of the required texts to the point of wanting consume them, but let’s not delve into my pre-exam madness, rather focus upon the subject of life under lockdown.
Yes, as your clichéd intellectual, my days comprise of homework, online tutors and anything I can do to not turn into an illiterate troglodyte; however, this quarantine has not only let me do things I’ve always wanted to do, but also confront truths about myself and realize a lot. Among the many things I’ve been able to pursue I can finally study literature privately. Although this evidently shows I’m incredibly boring, it’s something of a gift to after all this time escape mundane life or more appropriately imprisonment through the words of Shakespeare. Speaking of the Bard, he too is familiar with the quarantine, as he wrote many of his best works confined due to the Bubonic Plague, including one of his bleakest tragedies, King Lear, that will certainly make one feel more useless during this period considering this man wrote plays and all we tend to do is obsessively watch Netflix, which is a godsend in these times.
Being stuck in this state of uncertainty is challenging but we must do our best to take advantage of this time, but being packed like sardines is a one-way ticket to carnage. However, my advice would be considering the horrible circumstances most people are experiencing, nothing but gratitude and patience is key
That presents another question, as someone who has always been a workaholic and whose self-confidence truly feeds on achievements, this time has been “difficult” to say the least. Is it necessary to continue hunting for opportunities to fill this hole in our hearts? Although I am no expert, I think it’s necessary to take advantage of this time but to also not force ourselves or tire ourselves mentally just because others continue to work themselves to the bone. In summary, I think it’s important to realize it is ok to take a break and not compare as at the end of the day this is a global pandemic and our worth is not measured by such things.
Moving on to more personal subjects, this quarantine has revealed many truths, mainly how high-maintenance one is, people are finding all of this so exasperating because they finally have gotten to spend time with themselves. This is truly the best way to highlight the problems within ourselves and work to be better people, on the other hand this is also divine revenge on all the people who had become the bane of my existence. It’s very important to stop and correct ourselves. At the same time, all of the things I have addressed relate to our mental health. Speaking from the perspective of this generation, mental health and spreading awareness has always been majorly important for us. I’m not going to go through the list of teen problems resulting in our mental health truly being something of fiction, but how at this time specifically we should be focusing on ourselves and not panicking. We must do anything to preserve our sanity, whether it is trying out new relaxing techniques or picking up new hobbies.
Being stuck in this state of uncertainty is challenging but we must do our best to take advantage of this time, but being packed like sardines is a one-way ticket to carnage. However, my advice would be considering the horrible circumstances most people are experiencing, nothing but gratitude and patience is key.
The writer is an O-Level student and can be reached at [email protected]
