Feeling Covid Optimism

This is, I think, my sixteenth covid update (see here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here; here;  here; here; here; here; here). It's the first one I am writing with a sense of optimism about the possibility of full recovery. This past week, I have been more mobile, more energetic, more social, and more intellectual than at any time since the middle of December. And while each day I hit a moment in which I simply have to rest, that moment tends to be late in the day and passes. I still find that viplin music I used to enjoy sounds like scratching on blackboard, but I can now tolerate simple beats much better than a few months ago.

I realized that I was improving in the middle of a rather lengthy eye exam last Friday. After noticing that I was reading books without my eye-glasses on, but with one eye closed, my cognitive-scientist, vitreoretinal-surgeon better half had nudged me to the optometrists. The hypothesis that persuaded me to go was that better eye vision might facilitate my convalescence and aid my cognitive renewal, as I like to call it. She might it sound as if the theory has a solid foundation in the literature. Rather than doing my own review, I decided, mindful of my Nietzsche, that hope was better than no hope.

During the exam I reflected on the fact that that week I had spent quite some time on the phone with lawyers, accountants, and immigration specialists trying to sort out how to approach the impending final Brexit deadline (end of June). The experience itself was frustrating because it's clear that if one's territorial and life-style circumstances are even remotely hybrid and one's aspirations is to keep it that way, most of the credentialed folk actually have no idea how the rules should be applied to you (and, admittedly, may come to the conclusion the rules themselves are not yet sorted). But that I could spend so much time politely on the phone over several days without collapsing was good sign. 

At the optometrist I had the deal with a number of (very kind) people for up to three hours. By the end of it I was tired, and considerably poorer, but I realized that my fatigue was not that much worse than it would have been anyway. Then, that holiday week-end our son went away with a classmate's family. My wife and I had our first days of privacy in more than a year. Sleep and sun did their magic job! And while there were still moments of fatigue and irritability on my part, especially because at times the noise and bustle Camden's crowds overwhelmed me, we walked for miles, went to markets, and enjoyed a date in a sit-down restaurant.

One rather unfortunate side effect of my long haul covid, which I have been perhaps too oblique about in these digressions, was a disinterest in physical intimacy. I think this disinterest was partially a loss of libido, but also a fear of my own irritability and hypersensitivity around others. To be attentive to and vulnerable with another requires a minimum of receptivity and self-trust that I simply lacked for most of the time during my long haul.

Meanwhile, I have gotten a bit more serious about using this period to write a somewhat crazy book, The Liberal Art of Government: a Commentary on Foucault's Birth of Biopolitics, which I am developing from my series of digressions. My underlying intuition was (and still is) that I am not quite capable yet of developing philosophical work from scratch. I am, however, improving at editing what I have. (My initial drafts read like a stream of consciousness on prednisone (recall).) Initially I did this in 20 minute intervals, but these are being extended to ninety minutes.

I wouldn't claim I am capable of days-long writing weeks on end; I have to vary my activity throughout the day to avoid headaches. Even so, I am getting increasingly more critical with my existing drafts and that tells me some of my professional instincts are recovering. I am now circulating an introduction and two chapters, although these are still plenty disorganized and not quite at the level one would wish. (Part of the problem is intrinsic to the book I am conceiving because it does not fit any pre-existing disciplinary molds.)

The previous paragraph hints at the fact that recently I have had too much time to reflect on my past and future. Perhaps because my convalescence coincided with my fiftieth birthday I have come to reflect on my limitations and bad choices. Somewhat disappointingly, the only major conclusion I arrived at, whose importance I already realized for quite some time, and have successfully managed to implement thus far, is not to answer work emails at once. It's not a major step in self-improvement, but it pleases me greatly right now.

 

Comments

[George Gale]

Bien fait, Eric, trés bien fait!

[Marius Stan]

Good news for you, and for your friends too. We wish you lots of Lebenskraft, and also good luck. Dum spiro, spero, or something.

Go easy on yourself, tho. Also, Happy Birthday, belatedly!