Many, many phrases have come into my mind lately as I struggle with the isolation incurred by the threat of Covid-19 – namely that “the cure is worse than the disease” but also Nietzsche’s sage warning of the danger of staring into the abyss and the abyss staring back at you.
I don’t do well being cooped up. My mental health is taking a pummelling.
The words of Helen Steiner Rice’s oft quoted poem, This Too Shall Pass, have become something of a mantra for me in the past couple of weeks as I’ve tried to adjust myself to a life that feels as if it is telescoping downwards on a daily basis.
Every morning now, mentally willing the power of repetition to inform and calm my bewildered psyche, I stand staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and chant:
If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too
According to psychologists, whether you are disposed to believe it or not, constant repetition will trick your brain into taking what you’re saying as gospel and inform your body’s billions of cells accordingly.
Personally, listening to The Prodigy’s Firestarter at 10+ is more in tune with my inner turmoil at present but I tried chanting a la Keith Flint at the mirror and it did not have the desired calming effect on my central nervous system.
After returning from a work trip to Pittsburgh, which was unceremoniously cut short due to Trump’s flight ban, I’m currently on lockdown with my parents who are in their 70s. With a lengthy list of medical conditions between us we are classed as “highly vulnerable” and going more than slightly stir crazy thanks to this newly imposed (but I am sick of repeating, temporary) world order...
Read more at the Irish Times
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