Thoughts on COVID-19 Isolation

It has been nearly three weeks now since our lives changed at the drop of hat. It is amazing how quickly my family and I have had to adapt to a more insular life - barely going shopping for groceries, schooling done remotely at home, and my wife working from home. For myself, "physical distancing" or "social distancing" has never been a problem - I have always been a bit of a loner or "quasi-hermit"! But, even I have started to feel the effects of this to some extent.

It is funny how when you lose your choice in doing things, even if you wouldn't normally do them, that you start to feel restricted and somewhat claustrophobic. This is how I have been feeling lately and it is a strange feeling indeed. I have been wondering to myself if this is a reflection on something deep within my personality that I don't really want to admit - that, at heart, I am quite a contrarian. If something is popular, I tend to reject it. If everyone thinks that something is fashionable and desirable, I ignore it. If Apple products are considered the gold standard, I go with Google or Microsoft. When I reflect on my life, there is a definite pattern here.

So I come to today... I am feeling uncharacteristically claustrophobic at home.  This could be due to many things - contrarianism, not being alone anymore at home with everyone now here full time, or the inability to go out to some place on a whim. Perhaps it is all three of these things. What can I Iearn from this? Does this offer any lessons for my life going forward? I suspect so but I have not figured this out yet. I wonder if any of this will become clearer as our pandemic-induced self-isolation eventually comes to an end. I hope that there might be lessons here for me for when I eventually return to work from sick leave.

Lots to think about and certainly a lot of time available to think about it.