I think the lockdown taught a lot of people about themselves. The main thing it shed light on is that a lot of people live their lives in such a way, that “social distancing” didn’t pose such a disruption to their day to day. Don’t get me wrong, I am okay with not having a massive circle of friends, and while a younger version of me would have said that utterly disingenuously, I don’t. I came to understand the hard way surrounding yourself with people, regardless of the quality of the character, is not a good thing. We are the average of the people we surround ourselves with after all. Taking that aside, the truth is most people piss me off, my social battery is reminiscent of a three-year-old iPad at this point. The fact is, it was not the lack of social contact that I saw a problem with over lockdown, it was the realisation that I simply do not leave my room a lot.

This is a very large reason why I say that I could never do a remote work job, despite the fact the tech field seems to be running at that form of work like a lovestruck teenager. The further we progress in our technological prowess as a society, the more we seem to be moving towards living and dying in a small little room. Our food, lifestyle, and now work are delivered to us with free next-day shipping when you sign up with prime. Being the good little alt-tech champion that I am I reject this. I think as a society we already have a toxic enough relationship with the tech we use, and the trend towards it taking away our desire and need to go outside is concerning.

So today I tried something - I was already in London for something about midday and had to be in a different part of London later that day. This meant that I couldn’t simply go home in between, because by the time I got home, I would have to leave for London again. I also had a list of things I wanted to get done today, and as such, I decided to make do. It seems to be an oddly American phenomenon to just sit in a coffee shop and study because to tell you the truth I haven’t really ever seen anyone do this in London before (although now I’ve tried it I’m sure that people do). It turns out the act is oddly freeing and somewhat forces you to get the task done.

In a way, it is similar to going to the gym. I have a home gym but have gone through stints where I want to go out to a public gym just because it is a lot easier to stay there for multiple hours. The same is true with this scenario, while at home I have a dozen frictionless distractions, here the only distraction I have is overpriced coffee. My only concern with this is that it may wreak havoc on my money and diet, but I am willing to give this a try in future.

This post isn’t as well thought out or thought-provoking as my last two, but hey, you can’t win all of them