Corona Diaries

Jack

‘’Being a sociologist, I am used to listening to other people's narrative, now I am trying to develop my

own...’’

Background information

Male, Aged 75-84, Retired from a Higher Education Institution, White, Heterosexual, Married, with 3

grown-up adult children 40, 34, 25

March 2020 – First entry Last night dreamed of visiting Waitrose with the old people and meeting Rebecca and John who I hadn’t

seem for ages. All day feelings of anxiety (or of something indefinable). Watching TV (The Stranger on

Netflix) and seeing portrayals of normal social life and thinking that’s weird/eerie?

What’s with panic buying? There certainly was panic - angry men with trollies in Waitrose during the older

peoples shopping slot...but why toilet paper?????

Long walk on Downs... 8000 steps.

Decided to watch True Detective (series 1) ... a modified quote that says a lot - “(this is) the faded memory

of a society......”

Went out with some friends to walk... we did keep social distancing....

Now we are confined, I managed 7200 steps on the stairs... Thinking politically, is the lockdown a practice

for longer lockdowns and suspensions of ‘normal’ democratic procedures? I dreamed empty streets,

nobody there and I am lost (not much dream interpretation needed then!). Perhaps personally - beginning

to wonder what will happen to some of our favourite places (Venice, Paris, Seville, Turks and Caicos

Islands) after Covid-19 ...what will after be everywhere? In this context, thinking about Mark Fisher’s

speculations (taken from Berardi) about the slow cancellation of the future...Fisher’s idea relates to the

impossibility of imagining a future that is not capitalism... Crazy thought for those of a socialist persuasion -

will capitalism survive?

Maybe obsessional but 7500 steps in the house + 1 bout of outside exercise as permitted. Using the words

‘eerie’ and ‘weird’ to think about the current situation... The eerie as something that isn’t there - so, streets

empty of people; the weird as the presence of something that should be there - not sure what situations fit

this definition... Maybe we can add the uncanny - that which transgresses boundaries, both virus and

zombies as neither alive nor dead!

Trying to develop a routine, which includes being involved in this Corona diaries project...

Thinking sociologically - how would Simmel understand the ‘metropolis and mental life’ in a locked down

city? Is there some fantasy that the internet will bring us together despite lockdown, unemployment etc

...? How much more guidance do we need about hand washing???? So much of what is being done

through news channels is based on an old idea that experts/scientists know the answer... As theorists of

risk society argue that isn’t the case thus increasing anxiety and risk aversion - but why did people take

risks of going on a sunny Sunday? Maybe something here about the quest for excitement in a controlled,

predictable bureaucratic society (Elias and Dunning).

Wednesday 25th March

8000 steps.....

Amazement at the delusional pronouncements of Donald Trump.....otherwise having a day off writing this

journal.

Otherwise, nothing to report!

Thursday 26th March

Another amazing morning.....how did the lockdown and the amazing weather coincide?

People who I contact on social media talk about being upset and sad when they return home after some

safe exercise ......

And then there are the eerie silences.....

9200 steps! Lots of walking up and down the stairs and in the garden....must be shit for people without

gardens...

Great to clap for the NHS workers ......an outbreak of genuine communal solidarity.

Friday 27th March

Thinking sociologically - the stress on virtual connections as a new, and now dominant form, of social

life....is this to do we what has been seen as the strength of weak ties; Simmel again - the metropolis as a

place dominated by many, shallow, pragmatic and instrumental social relationships.....is this what virtual

sociality is?

10000 steps - no idea how.....we are wearing out the stair carpets!

Saturday 28th March

My wife’s birthday, yesterday our wedding anniversary....and Mother’s Day last week....and her retirement

party (next week) all effected and/or postponed..........what is a party with social distancing and lockdown!?

I see Trump was giving out celebratory pens after signing the $2 billions handout (I think I mean $2 trillion) -

it is now impossible to ironise what he is doing and no dark comedy (tragedy?) could rival the reality

of Trumpland!

Sunday 29th March

Forgot the ‘Boo for Boris’ this evening – it was childish, but I am sure I would have enjoyed it.

Increasingly, TV (not the news) looks strange – my daughter (aged 27) said to me that she starts asking

why the people in a film/soap opera are not abiding by social distance rules! And then there is the

bizarreness of TV adverts for holidays, airlines, shopping in general, at a time when little of that is

happening.

Monday 30th March

My daily approved outside exercise (walking): apart from feeling a part of a post-zombie apocalypse, it is

noticeable that you see people do not look at each other and do not smile; there is a look of suspicion (in

some). The crossing of the road to maintain social separation makes sense, but why no smiles and no

looks..................after all, the virus isn’t transmitted through the eyes! Something here reminds me of the

role that looking – especially, bad looks – played in the era of the witchcrazes...

Also, guilt about going out – I have a small degree of this even though walking is a permitted form of

exercise... of course, I don’t drive to do exercise and am lucky enough in Bristol, to have plenty of spaces to

walk in.

Tuesday 31st March – End of The First Month

Well, recurrent dreams of being lost and not knowing the way (to where, not sure)!

Some anger – Trumpish and other political madness; some academics writing about the pandemic as if it is

over and indulging it too-really prognostications about the future;

Some sadness – unavoidable deaths; my some being in supported living and we can’t visit him;

Some anxiety – will being in lockdown mean we (mum, dad and daughter) don’t get the virus; about the

future – is this really a period of profound social change??

Being a sociologist used to listening to other people’s narrative now trying to develop my own.....