The past few months has been very hectic and confusing, but also surprising and thought invoking. I have been wanting to write about this for quite a while now, but I have been so busy with life (spoiler alert: I moved) and trying to get through the weeks the best I could. I have had my ups and downs, as we all have had back when the outbreak was at its worst.

All of the sudden, we were all presented with a lot of alone-time as society locked down. I think it’s safe to say we were all caught off guard. Here are my thoughts about the lock-down and isolation.

What I learned from isolation

Back when the outbreak was at it’s worst, I found myself alone for many days in a row, just like a lot of other people at the time. At one point, I would not see any friends or colleagues for a whole week. I didn't think too much about it at first, as I am used to days without seeing anyone, but this hit me differently. I started to question some of my own core values as the ever growing sensation of loneliness kept getting bigger and bigger. I started wondering what else could go wrong, to knock society out of course - and reflected a lot upon the current situation.

How information overload affects you

I find it an incredible difficult time to be a human - never before has it been so demanding just to be alive. With more abundant access to information of all sorts, we got to process a lot of it every single day, whether we want to or not.

Now, with the new corona virus on the loose, there is even more to take in. What are restrictions? How does they affect me? Why do we have to follow them? What is an epidemic even? Is this a hoax? What is the link between 5G and corona virus? (pro tip: don't make the connection, because there are none).

But jokes aside, the before mentioned is actually a very good example of just how fast information can be misunderstood. To think that today's society can be so advanced for some people, that they come to the conclusion that radio-waves (something I bet you they don't even understand either) helps "simulate and spread covid-19" is both amazing and terrifying. Somewhere along the information chain, someone or something, went terribly wrong. Luckily I do not believe that, because I know it makes absolutely no sense what so ever, but that doesn't explain to me why some people do, and to be honest, I probably will never figure it out.

I put a lot of thought into all the articles and information I read about covid-19, because the more I read, the more I noticed the difference in the claims and their information. Even though all the articles were about the same subject, the information about the virus in each article was different, not by a lot; but enough to provoke some thoughts by the reader.

What is right and what is wrong? All these conspiracy theories and weird beliefs which came to be during the epidemic just helps reinforce the fact, that too much information can turn into overload and become the very foundation of such theories. Therefore I think it is vital to shield ourselves from too much information, otherwise we will no idea of what to process or believe.

Toilet paper, yeast and milk

You most likely remember how people panic rushed to buy toilet paper, yeast and milk on the very day that the government announced a lock down? Toilet paper, yeast and milk. If that is what the general population deems as survival goods, then we have no clue what to do in all honesty (joke; but it's still an interesting choice of items). But I mentioned it because I want to talk about something I have seen us humans do, over and over, when ever disaster strikes; we go from civilized to survival of the fittest in a manner of saying. Let me also point out that our government (at least here in Denmark) also said on live television as they announced the lock down, that people should not panic buy or stock up on anything as we then would have enough for everyone. But people did exactly that, leaving those who listened, unable to buy certain goods for over a week.

I wanted to bring this up as I see this as one of our weaknesses as a society. This happens all the time, just take a look at how supermarkets are left out of stock in The United States when ever a flood or typhoon hits somewhere. This time it just so happen to be a epidemic. What has it done to our little safe and sound Denmark? No matter how much we would like help each other, we are still mammals and have those core survival instincts within us. The government was right in it's policy; if we just continued the way we did before, buying just what we needed, we would have had enough, you can see an example of that every single day. Milk is always in stock when you go to buy it. I think we need to address this untold issue of our society as it will most likely only get worse as we become more and more humans. This was my first time experiencing our supermarkets being out of stock, so I didn't put much thought into it until now.

We have the means to solve most issues we face together, but it requires some smart thinking on how to do it, so you make most people do the right thing. Quite frankly I do not see an easy way to get around this instinct we have of self-focus when ever something unexpected happens to the society. But I believe that if we prepare and implement measures to tackle exactly that, we wont be in the same situation again. Let's help each other out so everyone can bake some buns next time there is a lock down.

Some self-reflection doesn't hurt, one once told me

I think that reflection, and in particular self-reflection, is very underrated in our society. I don't want to get into the reasons behind of why that is, let's just acknowledge the fact that this is the case for now.

During the lock down I used some of the time to reflect back upon my life and the decisions I made. Past is past, that's a fact, but it is a good insight to see how far you have come since - and that is what matters the most in this case. Your own progress, seen in reflection from the past to now helped me prove just how much I had changed how it is going in the right direction, even though it didn't feel like that at the time during the lock down. I tried to identify the things I valued back then, but it was a difficult task to do, simply because of the passage of time. Can I find a reason for my past decisions? Why didn't I see things back then that I see so clearly now? I can question a lot of things about past-me, but never really find an answer to it. I believe it’s better to first come to terms with you are who you are. I have always been certain that my life has taken an alternative route, something I never questioned, but who or what defines whether that is a good or bad thing? Yourself. But we are keen to use society and others as measurement instruments for our own progress.

I have probably been reflecting too much for my own good during the lock down, but it helped me to at least try to understand who I am and what my place in this world is. All these core values I reflect upon are prone to change as life goes on, so reflecting is a never-ending process.

At last, I moved into a new apartment

Yes, so I somehow managed to find an apartment, handle the financial burden that comes with moving and settle down in my new place, all amidst the corona outbreak. I had to find a new place to live as my previous place was a dormitory, so after I finished my education I could no longer stay there. It’s been two good years and I will defiantly be missing the cookie-like rent. The new apartment is in the same city as my previous place: Odense.

I like the new apartment I moved into; I really, really like it. I have been looking forward to the day where I can have a place of my own and start decorating the apartment the way I want it to be. It’s a small one room apartment, a so-called studio apartment. It has got everything I need, except a dishwasher, but isn’t that just one of those first-world problems anyways? I have no plans to move out of Odense for the next couple of years, so it’s nice to have a place to call my own. I’ll see where I end up, because I never know what can happen in the next couple of years.

I’ll end the post here, before it turns drawn out and or gives you an information overload, so if you managed to reach this far, I really appreciate your time!