(T)Werking from home

Happy Friday to you all. I’m writing to you from my new office, which is also the room I play Playstation in all evening. I currently spend the bones of eighteen hours a day in this room. Time is a meaningless construct and we all suffer the virus of life.
Some of my family think I’m going crazy cooped up in our little play-room. My mother called it the playroom when we were young. It’s kind of nice that we still call it the play-room even though we’re all grown up now. Nice or creepy? You decide. But don’t tell me, coz you’ll only hurt my feelings!

I did struggle a bit when I first started working from home. Cabin fever can set in extremely quickly. It is not just being in the same room for eight hours of the day; It is the fact that once you’re finished work you’re not disassociating from work. You might go to the kitchen, make dinner (thanks Mam!), go sit in the other room for a while or go back into the same room and play Playstation for the night. You are not working but the computer is there. It is staring at you, reminding you that you have work tomorrow. You will go to sleep about ten feet vertically above that computer and the first thing you do when you wake up is remember that you are enslaved to the machine below you.

“But Cian? Aren’t you also enslaved to your phone, Playstation, T.V. and any other technological device?”

You could say that, but I’d prefer if you didn’t. You see, I am a slave to those machines in MY free time. The eight to eight and a half hours I spend disobeying social distancing with that computer downstairs is not up to me. I have to log on at a certain time and log off at a certain time. I’m a slave to capitalism.

“But Cian? Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland are unemployed and forced to rely on the government for a weekly allowance. Are you seriously complaining that you have to work? Also, you purchasing those items is a willing participation in a capitalist society.”

Well, maybe each day is blending seamlessly into the last and I’m losing all sense of purpose and will to keep pretending that I’m happy I’m working. Have you ever thought of that, you insensitive prick?!

“Of course I have. I am just a stream of words you’ve written down unedited and published. I am you. We are one. I am your true feelings. I am your isolation; your loneliness; your sense of worthlessness.”

Ah….well, this is awkward. How are you finding the ‘aul lockdown?

Hello? Oh. Ye’re still here. Sometimes you may even have conversations with yourself, vocalizing and acting out the two parts in a macabre, weird performance. That is why it’s important to get out of the house every once in a while. Go for a walk or a run within your 2km and stride those cobwebs away.
As I said before, don’t feel pressured to be the most productive human across the seven continents. This is an international emergency. You are allowed to feel small and insignificant. But get out and walk and don’t let it consume you. Stay safe and sane for however long this lasts.