Social Distancing 2.0

Life, simply put, is a series of experiences to help us grow and evolve with each occurrence, incident or event.

The current Covid-19 situation brings into the open a gnawing question about what's this experience trying to teach us all? And the experience here being referred to is not only the pandemic problem at hand, but also more importantly, the only possible solution that's emerged to prohibit an onward march of the problem.

At a time when socializing, mixing, sharing, collaborating, acknowledging the team spirit that we're all endowed with, is an aspect of 'being human' and to be celebrated, isn't it surprising that 'social distancing' has arisen as the only potential immediate solution to 'flattening the curve' and putting an end to the spread.

After all, 'social distancing' is almost an antithesis to the rich, philosophical concept of 'Vasudeva Kutumbakam' or that 'all humankind is one large family'. Logically, what's the message being conveyed to us via the need to maintain distance from another family member, if the world were to be considered as one big family. 

Whilst fortunately, 'social distancing' is only physical in nature and gives us opportunity to continue to engage, by socializing in thought & word over telephonic/ technological options, the philosophical message behind this solution is a matter of consideration.

'Social distancing' is all about 'breaking the chain'; in a way, ensuring that we are all cocooned in our very own self-fulfilled physical islands for a while at least, enabling the virus to tide over, without taking all in its wave jointly. 'Breaking the chain' as a solution, essentially requires us to split into silos for avoiding the dangers that coming together can potentially expose us to, in the form of the virus being spread.

For each island or individual though, this solution of 'social distancing' is as much applicable mentally, within the psychological construct, to avoid getting drowned in the wave of the situation. 'Breaking the mental chain' of internal thoughts around the fear, anxiety, uncertainty and potential impact of the situation, is as important as 'breaking the physical chain' externally.

The mind cannot operate in a vacuum though. It requires a constant feed and if the immediate, topical feed of internal thoughts of fear, anxiety and uncertainty is to be broken, it'd need to be replaced with a higher-order, more appealing ideal that the mind can aspire towards. 

The One ideal, focused on which, the chain of lower thoughts can easily be broken; an ideal that then becomes our very own self-fulfilled 'mental island', enabling the lower thought currents to be subsided and silenced, without taking away our poise in their wave jointly.

May we all aspire and reach that One ideal in which all mental chains get broken and we realise our own self-fulfilled poise; may we all come to experience what this pandemic and its potential solution is trying to teach us in its wake. 

The mental problem and hence, the lessons of 'mental social distancing' to be learnt are longer-term in nature - going beyond the issue of Covid-19 as a pandemic and stretching beyond 'physical social distancing' as a panacea to the pandemic...

That's 'Social Distancing 2.0'!

(Photo credit: ramestudios - the artist describes it as the Indian God, Murugan taking help from his brother Ganesha’s best friend-cum vehicle, the rat so that he can go through small areas to find the Covid-19 virus)