BY JO ST LEON
“We read to know we are not alone” — C.S. Lewis
Last week, I had various plans for how to use my solitude constructively.
I have made a start, but find that I don’t like being told what to do, even by myself. Instead, I find myself returning – over and over again – to the fictional worlds that so absorb me; to the fictional characters whose company I so crave.
And why not?
If there can be said to be a point to all this isolation, it is surely that we can do anything we like. It’s a little bit like returning to childhood. C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five, and the bygone days created by Agatha Christie all beckon with the long-forgotten joys of total absorption.
I found myself musing on the word ‘should’ this week. I use it quite a lot – I think we all do. Its function, in this world of isolation, is to keep the pressure on. I should practise; I should improve myself, develop a more profound spiritual life; I should only read ‘artistic’ books. While I keep telling myself that I ‘should’ do things – even if I don’t actually undertake any of them – I can carry on persuading myself that I am a useful member of society; that what I do somehow matters.
Once, I spent a week replacing ‘I should’ with ‘If I really wanted to, I could’. It was a difficult week, and not much got done. Except I did hang out in those fictional worlds.
‘I should’ is the habit of a lifetime, and thus hard to break. It gives structure, and a sense of purpose. As with so many things that do this, it is entirely man-made. Clocks, calendars, money, three meals a day – all are designed to keep us in line, tell us what to do, and assign a value to ourselves. They help us arrange our day, make decisions, and feel busy and useful. They help us know who we are.
As I go deeper into isolation, I look out into the world and see people still creating busyness for themselves. As a society, we have glorified busyness and become tyrannised by ‘should’. It’s not unknown to ask a person how they are and receive the answer, ‘busy, busy, busy’. Being busy is a badge of honour that everyone lays claim to. ‘Oh, you know, just hanging and enjoying myself,’ said nobody, ever. Perhaps our isolation is a way of breaking this tyranny, turning our backs on our man-made structures, and simply being.
How interesting to have only the structure given us by nature: day and night.
So for now, I am abandoning the program of self-improvement I decided to embark upon last week. The viola still hasn’t come out of its case. I will instead toy with the unusual idea that I am already good enough. My choices will not be dictated by ‘shoulds’ but by ‘if I really wanted to, I could’.
Instead of weighing myself down with guilt over what I am not doing, I will revel in my freedom. Philip Pullman’s Oxford is beckoning. I will immerse myself for a few days, be sad when it’s over, and then look forward to immersion in a different author’s world. The word ‘constructive’ will be as absent as ‘should’.
In my ‘iso’ world, the only criterion for choice will be ‘do I really want to?’.
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Jo St Leon is a Tasmanian musician and writer. Catch up on her fourth pandemic diary entry, A new world.
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Photo by Tyler Rutherford on Unsplash
