Saturday, May 9, 2020

Is the novelty wearing off now?

We've started to reach the point where a lot of normal people are getting sick of lock down. This has been curious to watch. For most people the lock down came pretty much out of the blue, so they've been on a different emotional trajectory to me. I had my little panic attack in the months leading up to the lock down, and have since moved to a stoic acceptance of the situation. Consequently my feelings are quite different to most other people's.

Over the last week I've noticed a definite change in people's attitudes however. I live in quite an earthy, working class area. So it's normally quite noisy, busy and chaotic. In the month or so after lock down was announced it was deafeningly quiet though. For the first two weeks in particular there seemed to be no one outside at all. Apart from the occasional dog walker, or family cycling in their little family group to get their hour of daily exercise. However, the last week has been quite different. It's starting to get noisy again. I can hear people outside. It's heading back to something approaching normality.

I'm now wondering if the novelty of lock down has began to wear off for a lot of people. This is quite important in regard any "second wave" and "second lock down" we may have. As if there's a novelty factor it will play into how people respond next time - i.e. they'll get bored of it more quickly next time.

It'll now be interesting to watch to see if the sleeping spirit of the "free nations" kicks back into overdrive. Or if we'll be slowly subsumed into a more eastern way of living.

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