Dear reader, let me level with you for a second. This is the 'stuff' -free zone. The 'stuff' is everywhere these days, rearing its ugly head. So, for as long as resolve lasts, I shall attempt to prevent the viral spread of the 'stuff' from reaching these desolate shores.

With that out of the way, one of my recurring daydreams that persisted from childhood into what could ostensibly be called adulthood is a dream that one day I'd get a boat and sail to a deserted island. There I would have access to shelter, books, food, internet, music and could pursue all joys of a reclusive life. All the while keeping the noise and clutter of civilisation off my sunlit shores. There were a few sizeable holes in the plan. How for one was I to have internet, or electricity, or food on a deserted island? Details. I never allowed voices of pragmatism to drown out the melody of a tranquil dream.

As it happens, stuck in self-imposed quarantine, I now am on a deserted island of sorts. The world outside may as well be the ocean for all I can do is look at it, and I do have access to everything one could need to live a pleasant life of contemplation. And yet, it is hard to describe precisely the extent to which I dislike this state of being. Having spent 28 years dangling my feet off the long stick of privilege, it is the persistence of my discontent that I find intriguing.

As I lay down yet another book atop the ever growing unfinished book stack there is a sense of futility about the whole enterprise. Why read? Why work? Why struggle? Why make your bed? In fact, why get out of the bed at all? It's all pointless isn't it? Just a monotony of days inconsistently glued together. And yet... so much of human experience is beautiful despite being pointless. In order to persist one must, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle.

It is humbling to see the crumbling edifice of our belief that no liberties or advancements once acquired could ever be lost. Much of the modern world is built on that belief and as we clear the rubble of our hubris to prop up what remains, we have a choice to make. If we are to persist in this struggle, how are we to go on and what are we to make of this new world?

When Boston became a major city, roads had to be paved and instead of designing a road grid to suit the rapidly developing metropolis, city planners just paved existing cow paths to maintain the status quo. We too can pave the cow paths by introducing a layer of technology and bureaucracy to re-create and re-enable the world of yesterday. But I can't help but think that this would be a waste of a rare opportunity and a complete failure to imagine means to something better.

With some luck, when this is all over, we may think differently about life, work, community, friendship, travel, and time itself. Metamorphosis is part of life. After a few weeks in a cocoon, some caterpillars emerge as butterflies while others emerge as moths. I invite you to emerge as a butterfly.