My silver lining
“Lockdown has been extended for 15 days”- a terrifying 5 word horror story for most teenagers. Traditional hallmarks of high school and college have been snatched away from students. No caps are being thrown, years of hard work aren’t being celebrated and the coveted crowns given to the prom queen remain untouched. The ravishing prom dresses hang in the closet, unused and untainted by spilled punch. Performances and competitions that students have been preparing for months, if not years are abandoned overnight. Exams that students have burnt the midnight oil every single night slogging have been cancelled in a trice. The dreams that they lived and toiled for have vanished overnight. In addition, they are devastated over missing quintessential events that culminates the end of an era. Each defining moment is like a piece that completes their
personality. Now, several pieces from that puzzle are missing. While their inhibitions about their future and academic pressure is incessantly mounting, the convivial parts of school have come to a standstill. Their brains are exploding with questions about their academic and social life which unfortunately, no one has answers to. While many might just label the anxiety and mood swings as over reacting, it is a proven fact that the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for reasoning skills is not fully developed in teenagers. Thus, they are more likely to act impulsively rather than come up with a healthy solution to the problem.
Besides, solving a Gordian knot like this one, a knot that is driving the entire world astray has spared no soul. The task of balancing your social life, academics, hobbies and family time while confined within the four walls of your room for an indefinite period of time could be extremely overwhelming. One of the bare necessities of a human being, a social animal is companionship and intimacy, which we are starved of right now. This is how preponderance of the GenZ are dealing with the interminable quarantine. However, I have a completely contrasting relationship with quarantine. There are two sides to every coin and I believe that even in these unprecedented and daunting times, finding a
silver lining of this pandemic is imperative for our sanity. Post an initial plunge into the deep folds of boredom, I realized that this inevitable feeling is more efficacious than we give it credit for. After a few consecutive days of sleeping my boredom away, I was so motivated and desperate to alleviate it, that I started to search for ways to break free, ironically, within the four walls of my room. I was hungry for stimulation, something to spend all my pent up energy on. This hunger is what lead to my burst of creativity, my ability to appreciate little things that I had missed in my previously humdrum routine. After a nosedive into boredom, I came out with a myriad of ideas and motives which generally, I
would never pursue. That’s it. That was my silver lining. Quarantine is what explained me the notion of bliss in solitude. It gave me time to absorb the lyrics, “Slow down you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile” written by one of my favourite artists, Billy Joel. It let my mind wander to places I was initially too
afraid or preoccupied to explore. I had gotten so consumed by the rat race and was so busy jumping from pillar to post that I never discovered the power of introspection.
This pandemic has given me an opportunity that no generation gets. It has paused the outside world and helped me discover and hear the sound we have been deprived of for as long as I can remember-the sound of silence.
In a generation like ours, it is a common occurrence that we get so engaged in the daily grind, so threatened by the brutal capitalist system and the daunting theory of the survival of the fittest that we get detached from the ones that matter the most-our family, our perpetual silent supporters. Quarantine initiated the inescapable introspection that was a much needed wake up call for me. Friday late nights of teenage debauchery have converted to family movie nights. Evenings during which I would return from school and plonk straight on my bed, exhausted have been converted into intensive workouts on our terrace. Dinners that were previously spent with most of our eyes glued to separate screens are now spent having serendipitous conversations. One evening as we all sat,
heartily laughing and reminiscing with a few photo albums did I suddenly tune out and the realisation that all of us as a family had not spent quality time with each other in forever hit me like a bus.
Even though we lived under the same roof and mutually acknowledged our
existence, we were never REALLY together. Sometimes, we need to lose something to fathom how much we love it. Only when I tasted it again, did I realise how long I was deprived of that joy that my family gave, and how much I longed for it. Yes, I am guilty of my screen time being slightly over the tops, but considering the fact that the lion’s share of it was spent in convolutions of laughter at the uproarious sketches my friends drew in our innumerable games of online Pictionary, isn’t that the greatest advantage of being a part of
this era? Physically, we’re distant but socially, I don’t think we have ever been closer.
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