Standing there during graduation, donned in the traditional hat and gown, overflowing with the satisfaction of achievement, I could feel the contentment course through me.

My heart pumped this contentment for some time following this. With hindsight, there's comedy in my arrogance. I was convinced that in three years I had discovered a permanent certainty of self that I had missed previously. I was adamant that I knew what I believed, I had solved the moral dilemmas that had faced me, I knew who my friends were and what I considered to be the fundamentals of life.

Then, this armour of certainty forged from contentment began to rust and holes appeared. Circumstance dropped me alongside past friends who refused to release their past perceptions of me. Suddenly, the certainty of self was being challenged by something as intangible as an alternative perception and the certainty wavered. Then, I entered new circumstances in which I met new people who had no perception. Convinced that I had the prime opportunity to enforce and establish my certain self upon the blank canvas of a new environment, again, my certainty of self was further corroded. They failed to accept my certain perception of self and formed their own perceptions which collided with my own.

With the shackles of uncertainty reapplied, the illusive contentment gradually slipped from me as I grasped in vain to retrieve it. Again, the ambitions I had for myself clashed awkwardly with the obstacles that were the perceptions of others. Each clash rattled my certainty and left me dizzy with questions. What do I believe? What do I do in this moral dilemma? Do I have friends? What are the fundamentals of my life?

Time passed. I learnt to navigate the obstacles of each person's perception of me. And incrementally, I felt the shackles of uncertainty weaken. I again had the agility to collect the shattered pieces of my contentment and refurbished this battered antique so it resembled its former prestige.

The cycle complete and a lesson learnt. Embrace and enjoy the certainty and contentment. However, know its fragility and expect damage. Accept that this will come but life will provide you with the tools to repair this.

So, COVID-19 has locked down the world but specifically the UK and my life for 7 days.

From a truly selfish perspective it has been, so far, a holiday from life. In this I mean that the time demands of ordinary life have paused.

I still have work to do but so little of it relative to the time available that I can spend a couple of hours a day working and still have hours of free time. This also applies socially. By this standard, I do miss seeing people, going for a drink and eating out. I also know that the longer that we are locked down, the greater the sense of loss will become. However, currently, my time is not being expended on social engagements that I might otherwise have been indifferent to.

This has meant, since lockdown, I have had time to exercise every day, enjoy breakfast every day, sleep until 8 and then lie in bed until 9 every day and to play games consoles every day. However, most significantly and satisfyingly, I have been able to read and think clearly every day. So often, in 'normal life', there is so much that demands my time, energy and attention that contemplation of things much more significant than an argument with a student have no place in my mind. To steal an analogy from Daniel Kahneman, it feels like I've gone from sprinting as fast as I can, where the only thing that I can think about is the maintenance of my speed, to a stroll where I can not only think clearly but also pay attention and thoroughly contemplate on what is occurring around me.

I should emphasise, again, that this sense of contentment is selfish. So selfish that it is accompanied by a sense of guilt. I am am aware that I am extremely, and I mean extremely, privileged to be in this position. To not be worrying (seriously) about my life, to not have the lives of others precariously balanced in my hands, to not be worrying about my job or money or food. I am immensely lucky that I can see this horrible situation as an opportunity to be pretentious and think.

However, what trumps the guilt is a sadness that it takes a global pandemic to feel that I have the opportunity to stroll and think and read. That society, ordinarily, places so little importance on protecting time to do this.

This lack of protected time means that I rarely think about those things that are more significant than work, money, politics, gossip and who/what I'm supposed to by angry at. I find myself completed immersed in each of these individual and interconnected stories. I feel dread in my core when I have work that is due tomorrow and I've barely started. As if, in the grand scheme of things this matters. Even more troubling is that this lack of time to stroll and think means I get possessed by angry narratives that really don't matter. When I'm sprinting, I don't have time to ask why I hate who I hate and how my hatred is constructed on fragments of a larger story that I have mistakenly forced into a coherent narrative. Yet, because I am relentlessly sprinting to match the pace of a society that honours sprinters, I don't usually have time to slow, stroll and contemplate how important the sprint is and most pertinently, where I am sprinting to.

In a message the next day,

She joked about love,

Flippantly,

Dismissively,

Tormentingly unaware I was wishing my life away waiting for two blue ticks,

My heart pausing with the blink of three dots,

Attempting to misdirect attention from the four letter word that choked me,

Our crossing had been a flash in the universe,

Coloquially they'd say we'd known each other five minutes,

So why do I need this obsessive intrusion exorcised?

For now I see your bed as one of the wonders of the world.

A cynic searching for meaning,

In a universe constructed of meaningless matter,

Fictional realities coalescing into one,

Which fictional coalescence to subscribe to?

He hopes for the one in which meaning resides in love,

Yet cynically believes that love is an intangible myth,

Ephemeral in essence.

However,

Of all the myths to cynically subscribe to, 

At least love has a biochemical foundation,

At least love leaves a neurological network,

At least love leaves tangible traces of trauma,

And what's more romantic than the biochemical, the neurological and the tangibility of trauma.

Reality and Expectation,

The subjective lenses of consciousness.

Expectation expressed through the motivational quotations of Einstein and Gates,

Seamlessly interwoven into those algorithms,

To feed the gluttonous Expectation,

Comforting the constructed self with warm whisperings of reassurance,

Because, "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best".

Meanwhile, Reality chuckles.

A finger on the fine loose thread of the constructed self,

Veins bulging with excited anticipation,

Waiting...waiting...waiting,

For Coincidence to marry Irony,

When Reality can yank the thread and bask,

Bask in the cruel, sweet power of Reality over Expectation.

Life as a fad,

Purpose a malignant myth,

The arrogant banker and the sorrowful Syrian,

Both dizzily orbiting to an infinite oblivion,

Both an extreme manifestation of the mathematics of life,

Indifferent numbers the god,

That assigns to them their spins,

Not without an unfathomable formula for fatality,

Cancer or chemicals?

Cocaine or drone?

Stress or suppression?

The numbers don't ask the questions,

They're indifferent to these insignificants.