Not Writing About Crisis
A Stream of Consciousness
Humour me with a thought experiment.
What would you write about besides the crisis?
There is an immediacy of far more than crisis although it seems front and centre of the mind. One could dream of where your thoughts could go elsewhere, not as escapism, rather a shifting focus.
Then again the sirens of a hospital car will be hard to ignore.
It is not likely possible, probable or at all viable to stop listening.
The sound spreads like veins in the city and the silence is readily there to enable the echoes to bounce against all buildings lined up, standing there, waiting for something.
Ineffable to be so ineffective, so hard to express with words this haunting silence, and yet the joy with laughter, the colours still fill the parks where there is green to be found.
Notwithstanding joy bleak rooms are imagined, imaginations of white, red and people distancing themselves from the painful environments they by chance encountered — suddenly.
So suddenly the world was different to the extent that one has to express or digress. Lockdown or opening up at times this springtime stretching for the blue outside. Leaning onto the windowsill to peer over and beyond wishing for nothing, there is talk across the street.
There is always talk of crisis. How can one not write about a crisis?
What would you write about besides the crisis?
A loved one or a phone call becomes about the danger or comfort.
The story of your grandmother.
Checking emails wondering whether you will be let go.
Seeing your friends being let go.
Looking up at the ceiling as a hand rises to a ruffled beard with glasses falling downwards slowly.
Strange.
This is full of empty — a loved one feels empty or sick. It is a wicked problem from person to person these conversations of gloom that so easily can be partaken in.
What would you write about besides the crisis?
The story of springtime and other pressing issues can be told in an excited way, it must be so. Health is such a wide term if wellbeing is considered.
If wellbeing is contributing and thinking to some extent.
Being aware of the crisis yet choosing to embrace what every day brings with as much happiness as we can find.
Then at least we are physically distant and not socially distant.
Not Writing About Crisis
It seems like an endless stream of writing on the topic of the Coronavirus, and I salute those who have something valuable to contribute to the discussion. It is well-worth shifting the focus of one’s occupation to help in any manner possible or at least attempt finding a way to contribute. On the other hand I find it strange not to be writing about the Coronavirus — I know it is ironic that this very text inadvertently ends up being part of this stream. However this text is about writing within other topics while a global health crisis is unfolding.
When looking online nowadays it is easy to find that motivation or energy is being drained. I mean — writing about hardware within the field of artificial intelligence seems pointless, although I know that to some extent it is not. Revising for an exam in a lockdown missing classmates and family seems a more tempting topic.
This is #500daysofAI and you are reading article 316. I am writing one new article about or related to artificial intelligence every day for 500 days. My focus for day 300–400 is about AI, hardware and the climate crisis.
