Discovering our pain threshold

We look before and after and pine for what is not. This is true and never been more accurate for all of us in this absurdly topsy turvy era. Pining is not all that Covid-19 has forced upon us (I won't say taught us because disease is no welcome tutor) and the introspection that has come with it has got us in touch with our pain threshold. We know how much we can take before we begin to wither on the vine. All of us have different thresholds for different emotions and pressures. We have learnt in a decidedly unwelcome crammed course of a few short weeks where we are with patience, tolerance, comfort, anger, the claustrophobia of confinement, even love for family, fear of tomorrow, and what it will bring. Each one of us has a different way of handling that sense of dread. And we see around us that the most unexpected people step up and keep calm and offer equanimity and those who were the strong pillars and rocks in the pre-pandemic years are suddenly found wanting, as if they frosted in their funk. They are waspish and snappy and whizzing swiftly towards becoming a part of the problem rather than the solution.
They say the situation brings out the person. Well then, each one of us is being tested for our mettle and the gravel in the gut.
Yes, of course we have changed from January of this year to now. We are uneasy, tensed, some of us seek sanctuary in solitude, no desire to meet anyone, others nibble at despair like mice on cheese, still others go from day to day groping in the dark, finding no exit from their nightmare.
Haven't you changed? Only you know how, the good, the bad, and the ugly. When things are going swimmingly we have the ability to conceal our weaknesses and create false thresholds. When the chips are down the facade collapses and we are compelled to face ourselves in a new and not always attractive avatar.
We become insular even petty and snarling as the 'enemy' wears us down, grasping and mean and grand and majestic and brave and kind and generous.
Three months into the mess we can each ask ourselves, is this new person really me and the answer to that I cannot give you.
Only you can because you know. -bikram@khaleejtimes.com