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Every morning I wake up, go for a walk and come home, long before I have encountered any other humans. I don’t want to see another soul, being distrustful not only of them but of myself. Are they infecting me? Or am I infecting them?

Once I’m back at home, I make some tea and then check the news. I visit Twitter. It is the same sense of panic. It may be news from yesterday or day the before, or maybe it’s from today. I can’t tell. It all seems the same. And before it is even 8 a.m., anxiety envelopes my entire being. When will this end? Three weeks, six weeks, or six months? It already seems so endless. I am not sure how to deal with not knowing. 

The modern human (or rather, the post-social human) knows it all. Whether it is Facebook or Twitter, we all are swimming in a stream of information — news, rumors, data, analysis, whatever — and we are used to knowing. Now, suddenly, we don’t know. 

Our media organizations are trying to one-up each other, creating more panic and confusion. The president throws out useless words like so many pus-filled bandages. His speech only infects the mind and body of our nation. Others share some half-truths about medications that may or may not work. There is a cacophony of words from those who are neither experts nor have the sense of restraint, which we desperately need. 

Yet, outside the window of my 600-square foot cage of modern consumerism, the world looks the same. The sun is sharing its light and warmth, gently enveloping San Francisco. It looks so normal. And still, I feel like the man in the famous Edvard Munch painting, “The Scream.”  When he described the reason he painted the Scream, Much might  as well have been describing how I feel now:  

I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature. 1

Maybe the ideal thing to do is to quit the media — social and otherwise — or, at least, refrain from excessive use. After all, as research has shown 2, “more time spent using social media” is “associated with greater symptoms of dispositional anxiety.” I am not alone. Whenever I check in with my friends, they are feeling the same anxiety and unease. I was reading this article in Psychology Today 3, and there some practical suggestions on how to be dealing with our collective unease. 

  • Reach out to people you can trust
  • Listen to them
  • Be Open
  • Collaborate

You’ll note that checking Twitter is not on the list.

March 21, 2020, San Francisco

Suggested reading:

  • The unending anxiety of Pandemic content by Amanda Hess 
  • How to handle the Coronavirus anxiety by American Heart Association 

  1. Wikipedia/The Scream[↩]
  2. research has shown[↩]
  3. Psychology Today[↩]

Letter from Om

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Om Malik

Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. More....

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Letter from Om

A (nearly) daily dispatch about tech & future.

You will get my reporting, analysis, conversations, and curation of the essential information you need to make sense of the present future.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

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