Empty Nottingham Streets and Searching for Meaning in my Life

Here is a picture of Hon-Fu which is totally unrelated to this post, I couldn't think of anything else and I didn't want to post a picture of a virus, Osmosis Jones or something lame like that. Here is Hon-Fu to remind future me to be happy and get back to things I like. Then again pictures on here are more likely to vanish than the text.

Here we are again and when I say we, I mean just me entirely alone on this quiet blog account.

Something incredible happened today; I jogged and partly walked through central Nottingham while a virus called Covid-19 has created a pandemic. I went to almost every part of  town that I know which admittedly isn't much. The amazing part was how dead it was, there were people on the streets but not many. I suddenly feel like explaining what's going on and going into detail about which stores are closed and which ones are open but are offering only take-away or delivery, but then what would be the point when everyone in the world knows about this virus, most places are experiencing the same things.

Then again, this blog is mostly for me to read months or years later, so perhaps I should remind myself of what happened. Nah, can't be arsed. Also this may all be over really soon, then how silly will I look after taking it so seriously. It feels like a massive change to the world but this is nothing in comparison to many things including wars. Oh shit, restaurants, gyms, pubs have almost entirely closed down?! What about places of war or poverty where you're lucky to get some mouldy bread and diseased water today. Originally I was only going to the park so I was in tatty clothes but I just didn't care anymore, so the people who were there and in town saw me that way.

It's the early 90's on a Sunday in Harrow where I used to live, the streets are eerily quiet but I liked it. I don't recall this lasting, it wasn't long before Sundays became like any other day. Some years later I'd be working in CeX and Sundays were just like Saturdays by then, I guess those empty Sundays were the left-overs of a perhaps more religious era, the day of rest and all that. Today felt a bit like that day, decades ago, perhaps it'll be memorable to me or maybe this virus will last ages, so any day I go out will be like this. Feelings are confusing, even though I've been feeling isolated, alone, I did enjoy the empty-ish streets, due to the fascination of it all. Actually perhaps it's just novelty. I feel alone? Jeez this could only be the beginning, I could be like this for a long time.

When the virus started to freak people out, it worried me how quickly people became obsessed with it, but even though people are still taking it seriously, I'm seeing them doing and talking about other things already, while I on the other hand have become the obsessed one. I can barely function, all I can think about is the virus but guess what, it's not getting sick that I'm mostly worrying about, it's more the physiological effect it's had on me. A lot has been confusing me but I've been trying to figure it all out. The main thing on my mind at the moment is the possibility that the virus has revealed that my life is a farce.

Take away the cafe, gym, Circuit Training class and the video games quiz I do, and I have nothing left. The farce part of it comes from the idea that these things were perhaps unimportant anyway. The virus changing my lifes landscape shines a light on how important these things were to me. I already deeply miss them which makes me stop and think that is quite possibly stupid. Maybe not stupid, more like unhealthy to put so much importance on such things. It's hard to explain.

It's the little things in life that are important, right? These things are the little things, I guess? So why am I now thinking they might not be important? It might have something to do with the people at most of these places being complete strangers, some friends are at the quiz and the class but they aren't as often as the others listed. I spend a lot of time in cafes and the gym, being around people makes me feel less alone but is that healthy? It could be a kind of delusion, a kind of way I trick my brain into thinking I am a part of a group.

I can't help but write this blog thinking someone may actually read it, so I should point out that I have been watching a lot of videos on philosophy over the past couple of years, the ones on the Academy of Ideas YouTube page. One thing that comes up a lot is our dependence on others, how they view and judge us, this is considered a bad thing. It's complicated and I couldn't explain it here but basically the idea is that a lot of misery comes from our strong desires to fit in, so we act like they want, not how we actually want to be.

I've gradually come to the realisation that I'm a victim of this, I've slowly changed over, come to think of it, about 16 years. I unfortunately have other issues but let's stick with just one for now. So being forced into having less human contact is tugging harder than usual on that natural part of my brain that needs human contact. Some of the philosophy videos could be misunderstood as saying we should be loners, to be fair some pretty much do say that but usually the main point is that we should make our own decisions and not go along with everyone else like sheep.

That may seem obvious but when I've spent time thinking about it, it was scary how often I realised so many of my decisions are made because I figured others would approve. So much so that it's hard not to think like that, I honestly think it's been so long that I've been conditioned. For anyone, the longer it goes on, the more you stop knowing what you actually want anymore, and I mean really WANT in life. Now, perhaps this is just me, perhaps you and many others are totally fine and make your own choices. In that case good for you but I'm currently totally fucked. Best case scenario I'm very wrong but I'm quite sure I'm not and if I am, it still means there's something else wrong, because clearly something is not right.

All of this could possibly be boiled down into a problem I realised I had years ago - I don't know what I want. Typing that out makes it look like a minor thing but it is terrifying. It is partly connected to ambition, do I have none now? That brings in a whole host of other emotions. Have my past failures like my University Degree killed my ambitions? It certainly feels that way.

I'm finishing now, this post went off on a tangent, kind of. It was supposed to be about the streets of Nottingham in this current crisis we find ourselves in. I guess I didn't have as much to say about them as I thought, I did have something else I wanted to talk about but I'll leave that till tomorrow. It's about how I think I should stop using YouTube and social media so much, I'm writing this here to remind myself tomorrow!