The amount and degree of miserableness continues to compound, and it's not even just personal anymore as the CCP pandemic is finally starting to get out of hand in Taiwan and stifling summer heat has arrived early. This is compound misery.
It's been a long time since I've heard anyone call it anything aside from "Covid-19" since I no longer watch those China-watch YouTube channels (because they turned out to be unabashed pro-Trump conspiracy theorists during the election) which regularly called it the "CCP virus", placing descriptive attribution most accurately where it belonged. Even Taiwan media sometimes calls it "Covid-19" aside from the usual "Wuhan virus" or "coronavirus". That's how thorough Chinese Communist Party brainwashing and propaganda is with the collusion of the WHO. Don't kid yourself, if you call it "Covid-19", you're doing it because of the Chinese government whether that bothers you or not and there's nothing you can do about it. All the variants are named after source locations, i.e., India, South Africa, Brazil, UK variants, but where did the whole thing start? Of course . . . Covid, Estonia (*insert Chinese news source*).
In a textbook example of "well that escalated quickly", northern Taiwan went straight to Level 3 (out of 4, which is lockdown) in a matter of days late last week. Masks must be worn at all times in public, limits on gatherings, recreation and nightlife shut down, and name and telephone information must be submitted wherever you go in case contact tracing becomes necessary.
That last one is the point of anxiety for me, ergo misery, since I don't have a phone. I've been using my invalid old phone number just to get by, but that defeats the purpose and eats at my willingness to do my part. My account-less iPhone that my aunt gave me does receive emergency government texts and has a number associated with it, but it doesn't look like a Taiwanese number and I don't know if it can receive calls or texts sent to it. I once wrote down my email address, but even though that is the only way to contact me if my locations are traced, it also may draw unwanted attention and suspicion that might uncover the fact that I don't have a smartphone, which I've mentioned before ordinary people find incomprehensible to the point of being criminal or indicative of insanity.
Of course, no one in my family has reached out asking how I'm getting by without a phone. I'd have to come to mind first before they reached out. That's all fine, I've given them no reason to come to mind and I'm neither their business nor responsibility and I have no expectations of them either. If they heard the news from northern Taiwan and thought of me, I'd be touched and grateful but contacting me would be unwarranted and likely awkward and uncomfortable and bottom line it's not like they could do anything anyway.
And it's not like they don't have problems and anxieties of their own. Southern Taiwan is experiencing a crushing drought with water in their reservoirs beyond disturbingly, desperately low. I don't think Kaohsiung quite yet, but other places down south are already having their water turned off two days per week since April. They ironically need a typhoon direct hit which would fill their reservoirs (last year was the first year in about 56 years where Taiwan was not hit by a single typhoon). They need a potential disaster to prevent an impending disaster.
In a contrast in misery, the early arrival of summer heat is more of an ambient misery. Merely existing sucks once out of the constant air stream of a fan. I even turned on the A/C last week way earlier than usual, albeit only long enough to see if it still works and to take the edge off the heat in that moment when it got unbearable. After the no hot water and broken space heater debacle this past winter, I fully expected the A/C to not work and I still expect my fan to break at any moment.
So many things compound to add to the list affirming "I don't want to be here anymore", but that's a list long in compilation and I'm still here so it can't mean much of anything until it does. But also long in development is that the misery isn't anything negative anymore. There may be an emotional component to it, but it's not dominant. Take away the emotional component and all that's left is the description or the fact of the misery. I'm not sure that makes sense or how it even really works.
Mindfulness practice triggers a stop, breathe, and investigate the emotion and the rationality behind the negativity caused by misery. There is no rationality for negativity when the whole spectrum of life experiences are taken as having value, which I think might be a Vajrayana approach. It can suck but I don't have to be all negative about it. I do find myself stopping and breathing and investigating emotions quite a lot these days.
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