A Better Life?

I've heard a lot about how many people have found this lockdown difficult, of how they've felt isolated, deprived of human contact and unable to escape the four walls of their own homes.  Speaking personally, I've been enjoying it.  Staying at home and avoiding people suits me.  I'm anti-social by nature - I really don't like people much and prefer my own company.  Being alone is my default setting: I've never needed others to validate my existence.  I appreciate that not everybody is as self contained as I am, or are able to live inside their own heads for long periods, as I seem to do.  For them, especially if they are having to isolate on their own, this lockdown must be a real challenge.  But for me, it's been pretty good - left to my own devices, untroubled by work, (for a variety of reasons, mainly health related, I'm currently on special leave) or other people.  Even when I go out to shop or exercise, it's an improvement: the usual social pressure to engage in casual conversation with strangers has vanished, as everybody just wants to get on with their business as quickly as possible and get home.  And getting home is always what I desire.  Work, for me, is a journey back home - all the time I am working, I'm simply counting down the hours, minutes even, until I can get back home again.  Now, thanks to the lockdown, I don't have to make that daily journey - I can stay safely at home as long as I like.  (I know, these could be taken as symptoms of depression, but that's nothing unusual for me).

Not that I've become a complete hermit or recluse during this lockdown.  I've been in contact with family and friends and I've been a regular participant in a globe spanning series of video calls with fellow podcasters, (the audio from which can be found over at the Overnightscape Underground).  That said, of late, I haven't been as diligent as I should in keeping in contact with some friends - that is one problem with this situation: the days roll into one and slip past, before you know it, weeks have gone by since contacting someone when you thought that it was only days).  But the thing is that this lockdown has offered me a glimpse of a better lifestyle.  Not an idyllic lifestyle, perhaps, but certainly better than my increasingly fraught normal working life.  As I say, being at home, focusing on my various projects suits me.  The only things restraining me from doing more on those projects is the lack of easy availability of some of the materials I require and the fact that, like everyone else, I just don't know how long this situation is going to carry on.  This time has, however, given me food for thought with regard to work, moving me more and more toward the idea of not going back when the lockdown ends, of handing in my resignation and continuing with my present lifestyle.  Now, it is all very well eulogising life under lockdown, but, of course, right now I'm still being paid.  Walking away from my job would make it a very different proposition.  That said, my finances are very jealthy right now - I've spent years building up my bank account with the idea of being able to walk away from my current job.  That moment might finally have come.  I have no mortgage and no dependents, so I'd be good for a few years if need be.  The fact is that I'm in a position where, even if I didn't want to start running down those savings, I don't need to work full time, (I only work four days a week as it is - if the job paid better, it would be even less).  There are possibilities out there for generating income through working reduced hours.  I know, I've been looking into them.  So, you never know, this pandemic could yet have a silver lining, for me, at least.