Plague Conditions and Melancholy

[tcpip]

With several hundred new cases of COVID-19 afflicting Melbourne on a daily basis and a number of deaths (mainly in private nursing homes), the government has introduced Stage Four restrictions across the capital city and Stage Three across the rest of the state, with the declaration of a State of Disaster. Whilst we are certainly doing better than comparable populations in the United States, for example, it is hitting us here very hard and quite out of proportion to the rest of the country. If and when all is said and done and Victoria gets out of this (which, with strong enforcement, it will) I suspect that the root causes are not going to look good for past and present Federal government decisions. Apropos, The Isocracy Network will be holding its annual general meeting in three week's time, with a discussion on the health, economics, and welfare of COVID-19 as a roundtable discussion item.

I will not pretend that I am not experiencing a high degree of emotional melancholy at the moment, and the issues of isolation, distance, and uncertainty are not helping. In such circumstances, it is in my personality trait of driven dysthymia to throw myself into being productive and immersive. I have been writing thousands of words each day; ranging in subjects from fundamentals of programming, to reviews of roleplaying supplements, anarchism and Esperanto, the relationship between psychology and project management, and an article on Rocknerd on "Art Damage Through Self-Referentiality". There has been gaming, of course in recent days, highly appropriate settings for Cyberspace Stalkers, and Eclipse Phase, and I've found myself delving deeply in the brilliance of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, the Orson Welles radio broadcast, and Jeff Wayne's Musical Version (the 2005 Steven Spielberg film is just awful in comparison). It's from Wayne's "Spirit of Man" that I am delving, almost hopelessly, against and within current circumstances.

"There must be something worth living for
There must be something worth trying for
Even something worth dying for

And if one man could stand tall
There must be some hope for us all
Somewhere, somewhere in the spirit of man

There has to be a way that we can
Restore to life the light that we have lost"

Comments

[tcpip]

Thanks helvetica, you have been a good friend over the years.

These are extremely trying times. It is worse because I don't see a way out, aside from an absolute multi-month stage 4 restrictions or stage 5 lockdown, and even then with new outbreaks.

It's a new world, and not a better one.

[helvetica]

I totally hear you, it's hard even to think towards the future, it seems so far away. <3 A bit silly but this kind of cheered me up the other day and maybe it will do the same for you:

https://twitter.com/SWatercolour/status/1289883247892000769/photo/1

Some day there will be really good days made brighter by the hardship, I hope! Wishing you all the best :)