Yesterday was Christmas here in London.
I have been alone in the flat for sometime now. I had a chance to listen to myself with the help of the pure silence. At the meantime, there has been a lot going on. A lot of things that I need to digest, that I feel that I need to label and categorise. It now feels quite like a pile of clothes on a bedroom waiting for me to check them, separate them if they are going into the laundry basket or back in the drawer.
They say 'It has been tumultuous year'. Even though it looks like a very advance vocabulary that requires to look it up, you would know what they are talking about. Because we have been there, lived through the year and survived. Too many things have changed, lots of things have been affected and altered, way too many have died and keep dying.
Peoples' mind has been changed. We all missed some certain things that are taken from us. Personally, I immediately felt what matters the most for me. I always loved to be surrounded by friends. I have missed being social, having social connections of any kind. Especially when you are in a new community and dying to explore more via people or events.
With all these changes happening out of anyone's control, I wanted to step back for a second and tried to assess what has been going on in our lives; on a more micro level. I have found myself thinking about two separate thoughts; more like two separate perspectives that are basically against each other.
First perspective: I think that I had the most mindful year ever. I have been working from home. I had to learn to manage myself without any superior power (aka boss) checking what I am doing. I was there, sitting in front of the screen and facing with my responsibilities and myself who has no interest what I was supposed to do. Soon I accept this situation as a challenge, as an experiment to manage myself and watched myself pushing my limits like a very dedicated monk who has no attachments or no selfish pleasures what he does.
I also realised that when you have very limited social interactions (for me it was my lovely partner), you have very limited distraction. I can easily say that it was a big relief not to choose what to wear and what kind of a small talk I need with my colleague to make me look normal (please take into consideration that I have no prior knowledge of any kind of video games- so not able to start a conversation by looking at a little figure standing on anyone's desk).
Second perspective: It was the ninth month already since we started this working from home thingy. The company was very happy about the increased numbers of the sales. In terms of the charts coming from finance department, everything looked great. The people I know in Turkey have started playing online games together. I was making jokes like 'Do you guys play without getting paid? Nah, you are all silly!' The company was also being generous to maximise our comfort at home. They even paid for the office chair I bought. Even more, they spared £300 for each of us for work related expenses. Everybody was so thoughtful and well-organised. Later on, all the people from the company started to have zoom parties for Christmas, for any day that can be celebrated. Then, we started having whatsapp/ zoom parties to have fun. Until here, everything looks cool and very nicely thought, etc. The weird thing is that I find these virtual environments so unreal and so worthless. One day, when I was in one of those 'come and say hello Friday Teams meetings', I could not help myself and suddenly said that I hate these virtual parties. It was all wrong for me to say that even thought it is the pure truth. It was wrong because it was the meeting just after the Christmas Virtual party organised by the company and everybody thought that I hated that party. In fact, I reacted the idea that 'these virtual parties are the new normal now'. Agggh- the new normal talk gives me the creeps. Yes, I don't agree that this is going to be the new normal. If there had been no virus wandering among us, we would not be having these weird parties that we had to sit in front of the screen with the cam on.These are the parties that everybody looks clueless and tries to choose the best channel to be in. I know there is an effort there and I do not underestimate that, ever! It is amazing that they are organised when it is the only option available for us. However, I do believe that these weird parties are not the new normal! I just think that the virtual parties are temporary solutions and they won't be replaced by real hang-outs that are held in a pub or at home, ever!
I may be a bit sad and emotional that either I could not shut my mouth at that moment about my pure truth or I could not elaborate my thoughts about virtual parties (the reason must be that I was talking how I thought when I was on a virtual chit-chat platform). I need to say that writing all about it gave me an instant relief. Let's hope that this relief is not temporary.
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