These are just some of the questions I have been reflecting on since the beginningof thequarantine.My case ispeculiar, because, even though I work at Qatar University and my normal time schedule during each semester consists of primarily teaching, doing research and engaging in admin activities and tasks, since January 2020 I have been on a long-awaited sabbatical and since the beginning of March 2020 I have been in London. I went to London with the goal of being a visiting scholar at a university here doing some sociolinguistic research on British popular culture and making use of the fascinating British Library and its rich resources. Even though I took advantage of the various London libraries during the first couple of weeks and was able to collect lots of material regarding my research, I came to realize that all UK-based higher education institutions had been on strike since February 2020. Then, due to COVID-19, when the strike stopped, all universities in the country, like in most countries all over the world, adopted online teaching and distance learning. As a result of these circumstances, I was left without the anticipated face-to- face encounters with people, books and academic resources but with plenty of time and space to reflect upon my research and other, more existential questions. Apart from engaging in excessive research-related writing, I was also able to read a couple of books on Swedish and Japanese cultures, where I found interesting concepts which I am using in this personal essay. In parallel, I took an online course on the science of well-being. All of these have helped me a lot to reflect on how we proceed in our lives from now on; in this essay, I would like to share with readers some of these reflections. Tobehonest, I havea feeling that, in the long run, it is impossible tounderstand or analyze the situation. But, yes, I am convinced that this is a “new insecurity.” From time to time, people have suffered various pandemics, from the plague to the Spanish flu. We, as human beings, are fragile and vulnerable. We may have forgotten, and this virus came to remind us that we are nothing in this great universe. Personally, as a writer, I learned to appreciate loneliness. I’m not scared or anxious to be alone, but I know that such a condition is difficult for many people. We live in an age where people want to be entertained mostly and permanently through social media, TV shows and other forms of entertainment. The most shocking pandemic-related stories are written behind closed doors, in the violence and displacement of cohabitation, on the streets of a
87
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online