Here we are, me and my love, taking refuge in our screens. Me in existentialism, she in French. Our bunker, sheltering us from the world’s war on human ignorance.

We struggle to embrace what it means to be alive because there is a particular, yet hardly articulable, feeling of uncertainty that comes with such contemplation. And, nothing really seems to ever fully calm it. We try and escape this anxiety through making something solid or permanent out of the things we “have” and the things we “do”. We build an identity of who and what we are, using “stuff” as props. In the sea of time, we try build a life raft out of discardable things. But, objects, “out there” in the world, only prop us up temporarily because this angst we feel rests on the half-understood realisation that the only real certainty about our individual lives is that they will end.

As #Heidegger says “Anxiety is there. It is only sleeping. Its breath quivers perpetually through man’s being.” Covid19 is the rude awakening of this anxiety. It’s no longer just breathing. It’s screaming “enough with the having and the doing, they only bring temporary comfort, it is time for being”.

Even when we’re busy “having” and “doing” it never fully defends us against the whisper. This in itself becomes an anxiety of its own: the fear of losing. It gives rise to a chase for constantly taking from this world rather than a settling into “being in the world”. Right now, those that have the most might just be those that are panicking the most?

This may sound nihilistic. But beyond the initial panic lies a call to fully embrace what it means to be alive. To feel the sun on your back. The taste of the food you are lucky enough to have. The sound of the birds gathering in the trees. The awareness that we all depend on each other. And, appreciation for those you love and fear to lose.

“Existence precedes essence” said #Sartre . We are born into the world, void, and are gradually impregnated by our experience of it. As Stephen Batchelor puts it “we are thrown into existence and its possibilities are thrust upon us”.

This morning Sam created his own Easter Egg hunt. Put his jersey on backwards so that the hoodie covered his face and enthusiastically tossed chocolate eggs into the shrubs so that he could later find them. The author of his own fantasies, recreating for himself a childhood familiarity.

This is the place where we continuously find ourselves in every given moment: our pasts shaping the possibilities we imagine for our futures. “We constantly are confronted with a future that irretrievably plunges to the past, “ Batchelor suggests, “but in doing so demands that we firmly seize it in the present moment and project our possibilities into actuality.”

Today Sam decided to find some respite by making the Easter Bunny real again, even if by his own conscious design.

What about your past is informing how you imagine your future? How might your past enrich or limit this imagination? What if we tried to leave the past behind and allowed ourselves to be entirely shaped by the present?

I don’t know too much about David Icke, but he doesn’t strike me as the most lucid public figure. Anyone who believes in a genetically modified hybrid of reptilian-humans poised to take over the planet should be considered with scepticism. Especially if he is talking about science.

Who knows the exact origin of the #virus (yet) or the long-term health risks of #5g. But, what we do know is that the Corona virus is very real. There is definite science behind this.

In Korean #Zen, the practice is to meditate on a specific question: “What is this?” The attitude with which one meditates on this question is not to find a concrete answer, but to keep this kind of curious-questioning alive.

When we ask the question “what is this” in response to Corona, science is fast finding answers. By now there are at least estimates of how long it takes from infection to symptoms; how likely is an infected person going to infect others; or how long it takes from initial symptoms to the need for medical attention.

However, when it comes to #Corona, the question “what is this” needs to be asked more broadly and consistently. What is this vague discomfort that I feel? What is this nervousness about how much wine I still have for #lockdown? Why does the stillness outside wake me up at 2am?

It’s less about the answers and more about staying curious about “what is this #experience I am having” beyond the actual #science.