My friend Sandeep sent me a link to an article in The National Post. When I investigated further, I found another interesting article in the New York Times too!
I am bemused because I associate the word with people in prisons. I always enjoyed reading about our politicians, gangsters/murderers/rapists, etc languishing in jail without bail. To associate that word now with what people feel due to the Chinese pandemic is tragi-comedy, at least for me as, I don’t think that I or most people that I know, are languishing in our lives.
Perhaps it is our age or life-styles that even before the pandemic not being very much different to what we experience now but, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it languishing. Frustrating may be but, languishing? Not in my book.
Perhaps it is just semantics but, what do you, my reader think about this definition?
I believe everyone is quite different in their reaction to the pandemic, Ramana.
Yes, I think some are languishing and feeling quite useless as their activities had been highly social pre-pandemic. “Outers”. Whereas “Inners” like you and me, don’t observe too many changes and are coping so much better. And the Outers don’t understand us as they are unable to entertain themselves.
XO
WWW
Wise words
Your response does not surprise me at all WWW.
some people who are forced into “languishing” are turning to crime – gangs of both genders seem to be roaming the neighbour looking for something worthwhile to uplift and take away. Many that find their homes ransacked, are turning to security cameras, just like some of the retailers have. At least once a week on the local f/b page is few screen/video shots of someone “on a property”
and I agree the “mental illnesses” seem to be on the rise, I guess if you’ve lost your job or you’ve in “yet another lockdown” and that you don’t have hobbies etc, then you will succumb to what your mind isn’t thinking about.
i remember asking a few of my working friends, what they were doing daily during our lockdown/s (we had a few in my region/Auckland) and most of them don’t have any type of “hands on” hobby… and some of them who have a work/gym style were locked out of both!
One in this arena, was shocked when I suggested that each morning she got up and before she went to her home work desk, she walked out of the house for the precise amount of time it took to get to work, walked home, took off her coat and started work – and then did that at the end of the day, good exercise including brisk walk if she overstayed her “walk” … I don’t know if she ever did it, though!
I was trying to show her, that “usually” she would drive to work and then do office – and back again. The walk in her neighbour would set her up on “usual pattern”
It wasn’t the first time I’ve suggested that…well before lockdown a long time business friend always bussed into town, got off at the top of Symonds and briskly walked to his office. Suddenly he was at home, and I do know he did take up the suggestion – he walked around a block each morning and night. Actually found it enjoyable…
That was a great suggestion worth emulating by all WFH types. I will pass this on to others over here.
I’m late. I don’t know why Google Mail chooses to put your posts in the commercial sector. I totally missed this one.
but I believe the last line in WWW’s comment says it all.
” the Outers don’t understand us as they are unable to entertain themselves. ”
and many never achieved a sense of Personal Responsibility.
for anything really. everything in their lives ‘depends’ on Others.
you are spot on Rummy. I don’t feel I’ve languished one bit. xo
Just as I responded to WWW, your response too does not surprise me at all.
Jenny and I are certainly not languishing. We’re as mentally and physically active as ever, and have plenty of things to keep us amused and stimulated. Like you, we’ve both been retired for a while and are very used to drawing on our own resources. We’re not languishing, we’re flourishing!
I think that columnists do not research enough before writing on topics based on some random observations.