My Unknowing Preparation For COVID-19 Isolation – This too, shall pass.
I have been a hobby level student of Stoic philosophy and Buddhist acceptance of things for a few years now. The stripping away of everything superficial and getting down to what is real has a tremendous appeal to me. This modest interest has turned into a practice and had allowed be to feel good about how I am handling my isolation from my friends and family who live in different places.
First, let me acknowledge that I am not that isolated. I leave my house and go to the grocery story or home improvement store every 3 days or so. I am also blessed that I have a second vacation residence that my wife and I purchased a couple of years ago and are now in the latter stages of a full remodel, hence the trips to the home improvement store. The reason I am not as isolated has two parts. One part is that I live in a state with very low COVID-19 numbers and plenty of room in hospitals. The other part is I have done the math on transmission rates in my area and death rates of the disease along with comorbidity factors and this has led to my decision to be in a more loose isolation as I have accepted the risk that I may contract the disease in which I have an extremely small chance of having life-altering symptoms from and I take precautions to not spread this to anyone else including keeping distance in public places and some form of PPE.
Yet, I felt very little anxiety from the beginning because I chose to prepare myself mentally to handle “the worst” situations that can arise. I have spent time in self imposed isolation before. Camping in the woods by myself gives a person a great amount of confidence in what they can endure. I think of all the outdoor excursions that have gone wrong in some way. The most obvious in my life being an overnight kayak trip when the temperature dropped 30 degrees with chilling rain and 25 mph continuous wind and no escape except for a couple of temporary breaks on a sandbar under a tarp. At the time, I thought, “If this is as bad as it gets, it isn’t that bad.” It’s the same mentality a runner has when they are trying to finish their workout. You can run one more minute or one more mile, and you can do it better!
I have also done experiments in fasting, not only as a dietary level to pull for health benefits, but also as a test of what I can endure. Most recently, I did a 4 day fast in January where I perhaps had a maximum of 250 calories per day. I felt gradually worse once it started and fought to tell myself this is a good thing. It will make me stronger. Finally, in the afternoon of day three I went into a state of feeling good physically and sharp mentally, and I finished my fourth day in good health and spirits. I shared this experience while I was doing it publicly and was looked at as a crazy person by most. This reaction is how I know I’m doing things right. In addition to fasting, I also have done the beans and rice challenge that I got from listen in The Tim Ferriss Show podcast. Tim would occasionally restrict his diet to beans and rice to prepare himself for a “how bad can it get situation.” I have done it and if I have salt and pepper it is easier than one would think.
Finally, my preparation would not be complete without the literature and cinema I have watched. Beginning with Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning there is no better book written on survival of the worst conditions than this. Despite Frankl not having control over whether he would be killed, he always had control over his thoughts and that control kept his humanity intact. Marcus Aurelius repeatedly talked about controlling his own mind in Meditations. More recently, I thank Ryan Holiday as the present-day Stoic writer whose books I consume. The lessons he writes about are timeless, yet he frames them in today’s context. The Obstacle Is the Way is a terrific read during this time of isolation. Additionally, the Buddhist principle that “Life is suffering” lends us to cheerfully trudge through the current situation once we accept this principle.
I can acknowledge COVID-19 is something current generations of Americans have never dealt with, yet other countries have dealt with much worse. Moreover, our society has grown accustomed to comfort and convenience which has made this worse in our minds even if not worse objectively. This is not as bad as it can get. I see this pandemic as an opportunity. Life will go on. Humanity will move on. Your mind and spirit will endure. Now is the time to train your mind to survive difficulties, then to thrive though difficulties. Cultivating this mindset will make the next severe test of our human capacities easier for you. This too, shall pass, but who will you be after it passes? The choice is yours.
Stoic Optimism 