Fear and judgement

Has your behaviour changed? Has the way you feel changed? You might find that you're short-tempered, confrontational and just different from how you usually are. It doesn't help that others seem to be behaving irresponsibly, potentially putting us and those we love at risk.

People are experiencing a sense of loss right now. It could be a loss of freedom, a loss of income, a loss of their way of life or even the loss of someone they love. On top of all this, there's a loss of connection with others, in the way we'd usually connect with each other. We're facing a great deal of uncertainty, and it's understandable that we may feel afraid, whether we acknowledge the feeling or not.

It helps to separate the actions of others from who they are. We may not like the behaviour, but we have no idea what is behind the behaviour. You may notice that condemning others, feeling animosity towards them, doesn't bring us peace. Quite the opposite, in fact. We may start to lose our faith in humanity. This is all the more pronounced when the positive aspects of humanity - warmth, affection, connection - aren't so readily available to us.

What we have left is compassion. If we recognise that behaviours we find difficult to tolerate are almost always a manifestation of inner suffering, we are more able to separate the behaviour from the person. This is also showing compassion for ourselves, because we reduce the damage that fear, hatred and anger may inflict upon our mental and emotional health.

When this is over

In real terms, little will change. The virus has already taken a number of lives, and a number of people have lost their livelihood. In the grand scheme of things, however, little will change.

In an episode of a martial arts podcast, the discussion took many turns, but at one point touched on the fortunes of Asian economies in comparison to those in Europe and the United States. A point was made that economies largely built on the exploitation of other nations' people and resources were now significantly weaker.

Up to a point, the governments of the world's largest economic powers were very much in favour of the process of globalisation. One possible outcome of the process, however, was a decentralisation of political and economic power. How a government responds to such a situation says much about their perception of where they stand, or believe they should stand, on the international stage.

The European Union is, in theory, an example of a cooperative form of governance. To some extent, this is true in practice, but it's also true that international competition exists within the union. Something interesting happened, though. Competing concerns within the union led to decisions being made cooperatively as compromises were reached. Depending on your political stance, this led to decisions being made in the interests of everybody or nobody in particular.

Unfortunately, some members of the union believed they should have more power; some members believed that others had too much power. The decisions became less important in the minds of many than how the decisions had been reached. Here in the United Kingdom, the media picked up on this dissatisfaction, and it became a tool for those who were fearful of the implications of some rulings, to convince the rest of us that leaving the union would be in our interests too.

Whether all of the above was a good or bad thing depends very much on your frame of reference. It does, however, highlight how our sense of separateness is linked to competitive behaviour, even when the environment in which we find ourselves calls for cooperation.

The current crisis has led to many of us feeling this sense of separateness on an individual level. The sense of threat connected to the crisis has, on an individual level, amplified the sense of competition with others. This was most visible in the panic buying which exemplified and reinforced existing inequalities.

Now that so many of us are living in enforced isolation, we might miss the company of friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues. There will, of course, be exceptions. Isolation will be a relief to some. The question is, will the physical absence of others at this time lead to us valuing their presence in the future?

Loneliness can have a profound effect on our mental health. When coupled with a sense of threat and uncertainty, the effect is more pronounced. Those who are unable to be with elderly or terminally ill loved ones may experience anticipatory grief, and those who lose loved ones at this time may feel the effects of complicated grief. Many other forms of loss will be felt - loss of income, loss of liberty, the loss of a way of life, etc. Isolation gives us more time and space to ruminate.

We are faced with the choice of looking inward, to our own experience and suffering, or outward to the experience and suffering of others. This isn't an entirely selfless act. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote that, during his time as a prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp, he noticed that those who were concerned for the welfare of others were more likely to survive longer. It's difficult to imagine how we, placed in such a situation, might be affected by the horrors we witnessed.

Modern writings on the subject note that compassion for self is a necessary component of compassion. Indeed, we may be of service to others, but it would be irresponsible to neglect ourselves. Acceptance and commitment therapy, for example, works with an acknowledgement that to be human is to feel emotions. Compassion focused therapy highlights how these emotions are often in conflict. When we give little attention to this aspect of ourselves, we are not exercising compassion for the one who looks back at us in the mirror, instead allowing feelings to gather strength and potentially overwhelm us.

"I feel... and how it affects me is..." It can be difficult to say this to someone else, if we lack trust in those around us or have reason to be uncertain of their response. To simply acknowledge it to ourselves is enough. There's a visualisation where we imagine reaching in to the feeling, and pulling it out, making it separate from us. Then, we reach out and bring the feeling back into us. It's a way of seeing the feeling as a part of us, but not the entirety of our being. Other visualisations involve seeing ourselves as an ocean, and our feelings as waves on the surface of the ocean, or variations on this theme. The waves come and go, but the ocean is constant.

In all of this, our thoughts about our situation and how we feel play a part. The words we use, whether spoken or in our internal processes, to describe what is happening, affect our experience.

I seem to have digressed, as I often do, but it is always linked in some way. Many discussions have started with "When this is over..." What I hoped to communicate was that how things are, when this is over, is fundamentally linked to how we use this time.

When I happened to see a good instructional video on Ba Duan Jin, I shared it with friends.

There has, so far, been no response. It doesn't matter. I know that performing this sequence, especially if we are otherwise immobile, has a positive effect on physical and mental health. I offered it in the spirit of helping others, but at the same time accept that others may choose not to accept it as such. It only matters that I offered it - that my focus was on others. I was thinking cooperatively, rather than competitively.

In the end, I don't know whether individually, nationally or internationally, a spirit of competition or cooperation will prevail. Most likely, the two will co-exist uneasily, as they have before. One or the other will be dominant at various points in time. Yin and Yang. Maybe we will use this time to come to some form of acceptance of the need for balance. Maybe we will just learn acceptance. Maybe that's enough.

Ottamage!

Sometimes, it feels like fate, the universe or something else is trying to send me a message. It's rare that the meaning of the message is known immediately, though it often becomes clear at a later date. Today, my attention was drawn towards a person - someone I've never met and am unlikely to ever meet.

Today, a number of things directed my attention towards Macharin (まちゃりん).

I'm not a typical fan of Japanese idols, if there is such a thing. My first exposure to the whole scene was entirely accidental. While I was searching for something else entirely on a well-known video site, Idoling!!!'s "Don't Think. Feel!!!" came up in the recommended videos. Curiosity, and the liberal use of exclamation marks, drew me in.

Somehow, the song and the video brought a smile to my face, at a time when, honestly, such a thing wasn't easy to achieve. I wanted to find out more, but almost everything I found about the group also mentioned another idol group called AKB48. A show featuring members of the group, AKBingo!, was highly recommended.

Most of the comedy in AKBingo! came from the reactions of the young women to the strange, uncomfortable or scary situations in which they found themselves. There's debate about how much of what we see from Japanese idols is an act, and how much is really them. If you pay attention, for long enough, you might just see something that hints at what you would see when there are no cameras around.

Many fans have their favourites. Many fans choose their favourite based on how attractive they are. There are fans who feel compassion towards young women who have made sacrifices to work in an industry where they entertain others. There are fans who fall somewhere between.

Macharin's given name is Ma Chia-Ling. She's originally from Taiwan. When she first appeared on the show, her knowledge of the Japanese language was far from that of a native. From her first appearance, she realised that her quest to learn the language was a "charm point". Some of the members taught her slang, and amusing phrases, or she learned them herself. The hosts saw this as a source of hilarity.

As we got to know more about Macharin, it seemed that she was trying hard to bring smiles to the faces of the audience, and even the other members, while feeling some emotional pain. Trying her hand at winning a comedy contest, she cried while talking to the camera, saying that she didn't feel she'd been accepted by the Japanese audience. During an episode of AKBingo!, we got to hear a call between her and her father, who hoped to see her on TV at a show for the new year. Some of the members in the studio, watching the clip, cried as the reality of a member living in a separate country to her family hit them.

Today, I managed to watch an episode of AKB48 Nemousu TV. It's another show linked to the group. In the episode, Macharin's acting skills were tested, and the tears came easily to her. When I later logged into Instagram, a post from Macharin was at the top of the page. I then saw a few news items regarding Taiwan.

Maybe I identify with Macharin in some ways, but that's a post for another time. It's hard to not feel some kind of connection with her. It seems all too easy to see how she feels. She was visibly surprised and delighted when she heard a member speaking Mandarin on AKBingo! She was visibly upset when AKBingo! came to an end.

One feature of the Japanese idol industry is that an idol's career has a definite lifespan. Those who have a good sense of timing have utilised their fame to break into other areas of the entertainment industry. I hope Macharin achieves everything she hopes to achieve. It's unlikely that she'll read this, but I really do wish her happiness.