I often think I was prepared for COVID from an early age. Growing up as an odd child with a severe case of bronchitis, a bad back, and a bunch of other things that were poorly assembled at the factory, from the get-go, I got used to being a loner.
So when the pandemic lockdown stroke, loneliness wasn't on the top of my worries. Thinking that things were going to get way worse, like in catastrophic proportions, my biggest concern at the time was purely survival. By 2020’s fall, after witnessing the winter/fall death toll, the social turmoil, and the economic downfall, I started to feel I was close to losing my mind altogether.
Luckily, I escaped from NYC in January and had the privilege to relocate to an island in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a close call to my sanity, but daily walks at the beach at sunset could do only this much healing. The damage was pretty much done by then, and imagining a social life similar to normal seemed impossible. Although I was putting long remote working hours, I started to enjoy my increasingly cocooned life, surrounded by a few close people (count them in one hand) and the comfort of just watching spectacular sunsets every day.
Back in NYC in the summer, I felt like an alien. The midst of desolation combined with the early attempt at a comeback crashed hard with my isolationist spirit. I longed to see my friends and the city I love, but the changes were so dramatic – within myself and the city too- that I honestly couldn't wait to get the hell of there.
Fast forward to a sunny Sunday afternoon sitting at my balcony in CDMX, I feel anxious to travel and see the world again. I'm curious about my friends' lives, and I wonder how it will be to meet them again. But thinking of it made me realize that it might not be a re-encounter; it might be like meeting for the first time. That's because I got used to my own company, always entertained by my own thoughts or taken by work, that it seems strange to imagine a life where you can just text a friend and say: let's meet for a drink!
But here's the catch: being used to be on our own doesn't only take the instant connections we make at an impromptu meeting for a coffee or drink with a friend away. Isolated with our thoughts and exchanging with the world only through the news, social media, and conference calls leave us without feedback. It's as if we are in a continuous dialogue with ourselves inside our heads, and the only thing we can hear back is the echo of our own thoughts. We are left in the darkness, and the only thing we can hear from the other side is the undisturbed sound of silence.
It reminded me of a Roland Barthes's 1977 "Lovers Discourse" book quote saying: "Cannot friendship be defined as a space with total sonority?". The sound of a friend's voice translates more than warmth and recognition; it amplifies our dialogue with the world, and instead of creating an echo chamber, it actually offers numerous other possibilities of understanding. So where would we go, and who are we without feedback?
As I look to the world outside, cocooned safely at my balcony, I contemplate the voices I can't hear and imagine a world where I have no control and events happen freely and spontaneously again. I long for a world where people won't agree with me, and yet my opinion is still relevant. A world where an exchange can change people's minds and positively affect the course of life.