6 An Appreciation for the Strength of My Family

I had returned to living in my parents’ home, a second-floor apartment, as well as staying at my ex-girlfriend’s home on and off. I was 22 at the time COVID-19 commenced.

I did enter full lockdown. In all honesty, I cannot recall the full duration of each lockdown, but I stayed in my home for whatever the intended duration was, excepting occasional excursions for necessities. As the lockdowns came and went, I was off and on work as a bartender. No immense lifestyle changes were made other than not going to work. Typically, I am not exceptionally social or engaged in areas of heavy social density, other than my workplace. This led to a few personal lifestyle changes. My diet, daily habits, exercise routine, and relationship with friends and family were largely similar. Friends, I saw less, but heavy group chat communication continued.

Seeing the hurt and financial suffering in my family was the greatest challenge. My father is a musician dependent on large social gatherings and entertainment centers operating, as well as, at-home-based private lessons for income. All of this was lost during the lockdowns and massively decreased in consistency and frequency. The music industry is still recovering to this day, and so is my father who encountered significant financial difficulties in the years during and after Covid. This led to the remortgaging of our home, as well as all family members working together financially to keep our homes. My mother was a personal assistant and nanny to a family running an online mental health service, her work also had to be discontinued. Of course, my own work, at the time as a bartender, also ended due to health and safety requirements during lockdown. We were all understanding of this, though my father did not meet the requirements for many of the government aid options as he owns his own business and was dependent on private lessons or gigs planned between musicians. All the financial insecurity led to significant depression and distress in the household. Something of benefit during Covid was that my family did get to spend more time together, more time for potential relaxation and bonding time. Personally, I was able to spend more time with my girlfriend at the time, which was enjoyable. The lockdowns during COVID-19 also gave me the time to work on my own home and repair many things in my upstairs apartment that needed maintenance, repainting, drywall, etc. Overall, Covid was generally a harsh, depressing, and sobering experience, with some periods of extended relaxation and opportunity to work on things that otherwise may not have been so simple to coordinate.

I was at McMaster during the final few years of online schooling. I found it relaxing, though a bit boring and difficult to engage in. It also stunted my development to a degree as in my final years out of lockdown I’ve had to do consistent verbal presentations in front of groups, something I had previously been quite anxious toward but now am rather comfortable doing and see the benefit in learning. I do learn well on my own time in a quiet relaxed space where I can contemplate and play with ideas for extended periods, so COVID gave me the space to learn how to do university-level work comfortably online without it being an overwhelming experience. Many others who started university at the same time as me seemed to suffer significantly from depression and frustration due to learning difficulties in a private setting, as well as the lack of social connection and the potential for lost opportunities.

No, most of the larger events of my life for this period had already occurred. Much of what took place during COVID-19 was the internal development of relationships in a more private setting with larger amounts of free time. There was nothing upcoming in my life that was significant enough to warrant the feeling of the loss of a big life event. It was largely business as usual, but in a less variable and more predictable state.

Less use of cash was something I noticed as a bartender. Streamlining of online communication methods and increased use of group chats was a noticeable change. This led to lesser socializing post-Covid. As previously mentioned, the music and entertainment industry significantly died down. Many musicians my family was connected to became quite depressed, and the reciprocal nature of the music community was very damaged socially for a time. Also, working in the restaurant industry, I noticed they had stopped employing musicians for some time after the COVID lockdowns due to lack of funds, and I believe this has transitioned to less live music in small-scale settings to this day.

I saw some positives as well as negatives. My girlfriend at the time had significantly less stress due to the lack of work. She enjoyed her time at home and the relaxation it provided. I myself felt somewhat cooped up but engaging in exercise on local trails frequently was a pleasant excursion. I am sure many others faced exceptional difficulties as they ended their high school years only to face significant social limitations, likely leading to a significant lack of life experiences, opportunities and development of social networks. To simplify, if you were an introvert, it was likely a pleasant and relaxing experience. As an extrovert, or someone looking to expand their horizons at this time in life, it was likely quite depressing and discouraging. In myself, it allowed me to observe humanity’s reactionary capacity as I was able to perceive that human social networks work via reactionary momentum, and often preemptively must react due to social responsibilities and constraints. Thus, we had to react to COVID-19 whether we liked it or not and had to display certain reactive perspectives and actions in order to maintain our social status and standing. It revealed to me how humanity is immensely reactive to waves of social momentum, and that Covid itself was simply a trigger for inevitable social responses of the time. A lot of anthropological and psychological contemplation at the time improved my mental health and allowed for a further understanding of how global networks have transformed social reactions. This was definitely of benefit to me.

Humanity is preemptively socially reactive; it is driven by social reactions and momentum. These reactions should be better assessed and observed as they are relatively predictable. Covid only revealed the inherent patterns existent in our globalist state, as reactions lead to immediate action, both medically and socially, in order to display adherence to the most accepted beneficial course of prevention, whether it benefited the populace or not. In some senses, it was of benefit, in others, it was exceptionally damaging. Thus, we should educate and adapt ourselves to administer the correct nuanced networks of aid and reaction according to the needs and requirements of each. There should be a larger-scale social study taking place, which seeks to understand the complexity of social networks and slow down or adapt the social reactionary momentum in each case. In the case of the Covid vaccines, though I am exceptionally understanding of their benefits, their release seemed preemptive. A family member of mine had a seizure after the second administration of the vaccine after having had no previous history of seizures. Additionally, I myself had a bought of trigeminal neuralgia, which lasted about 48 after my second shot of the vaccine, again something I have had no history of, or have had since, but was exceptionally painful and disturbing at the time. Perhaps more clear statements on the potential risks of vaccines should be highly publicly accessible and clarified. In the future, a humble lack of knowledge in the face of a new unknown must be considered seriously; it portrays honesty and clarity while maintaining serious efforts toward halting the progress of the disease. Thus, what is presented is a social problem, COVID-19 is, partially irrelevant as it was only a trigger which exacerbated social issues to an extreme. In 100 years, I hope there will be a deeper social and psychological understanding of human reactionary potential, as well as further interest in varied social groups which cannot properly adapt to intended social changes. The efforts taken place during COVID-19 were clearly rushed and lacked the coherence of learned experience, but this event was a first in the sense of the global nature and population scale of the world. Thus, no heavy blame can be placed, I hope in 100 years this is fully realized.

The historical relationship of leprosy within Singapore throughout the colonial and post-colonial periods shares several significant parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic reaction. Both of these diseases-initiated responses from the state were rooted in conceptions and motivations of scientific progress and the maintenance of social order. Colonial British authorities in Singapore, and eventually the People’s Action Party, came to enforce segregation on those afflicted by leprosy. The motivations for this were due to anxieties of large-scale contagion and public health risks, identical causes and effects that were seen in the COVID-19 pandemic as well. In the case of COVID-19, the scale had magnified and expanded significantly. In my opinion, this was the root of the problem. Large-scale reactions blanketed regions in which the populace couldn’t correctly adapt. More nuanced regional governance would have been helpful in the case of COVID-19. As a bartender, being told to enter lockdown was largely understandable. My job required constant use of a dishwasher while making drinks, conversing with others, etc. The spread of COVID-19 is essentially inevitable in this scenario. But in the case of my family, even though my parents’ work was dependent on social connections, social gatherings, and situations, which would inevitably spread COVID, the blanketing consensus of lockdown and the aids provided during that time simply didn’t make sense or apply to my parents. This inevitably led to conflict, as can be seen in the case of those forced to quarantine in colonial Singapore. Regional governance would allow some form of communication or specificity, which is simply not accessible in large-scale, blanketing commands and statements, and the lack of communal reciprocity and understanding is the root of this issue.