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Blog archive

November 2024

October 2024

ARBORIST WALK: NOT FOR TREE HUGGERS ONLY!
10/29/2024

Bill Wishner: Visual Hunter
10/29/2024

Can a Village Group Fix Our Healthcare System?
10/29/2024

Community Board Directors Strengthen Village Board
10/29/2024

Connecting with Village Connections: The A, B, C, & D’s of Medicare @ 65+
10/29/2024

Grief is a Journey: Two Paths Taken
10/29/2024

Message from the President
10/29/2024

Promoting Informed & Involved Voters
10/29/2024

What Will Be Your Legacy?
10/29/2024

1619, Approaching the Election...
10/27/2024

Beyond and Within the Village - A Star is Born
10/17/2024

Happiness by Priscilla Leonard
10/11/2024

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
10/11/2024

Unpainted Door by Louise Gluck
10/11/2024

In the Evening by Billy Collins
10/10/2024

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
10/10/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

Betty Kilby, A Family History
10/01/2024

September 2024

August 2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

1619 Wide Ranging Interests
08/19/2024

First Anniversary
08/19/2024

Alexandra Leaving by Leonard Cohen
08/16/2024

Muse des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
08/16/2024

The God Abandons Antony by Constantinos P. Cavafy
08/16/2024

Ch – Ch – Ch –Changes
08/15/2024

Cultural Activities Team offers an ‘embarrassment of riches’
08/15/2024

Engaging in Pasadena Village
08/15/2024

Future Housing Options
08/15/2024

Message from the President
08/15/2024

There Are Authors Among Us
08/15/2024

Villagers Welcome New Members at the Tournament Park Picnic
08/15/2024

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas
08/14/2024

A narrow Fellow in the Grass by Emily Dickinson
08/13/2024

Haikus
08/13/2024

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
08/13/2024

Poem 20 by Pablo Neruda
08/13/2024

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
08/13/2024

Trees by Joyce Kilmer
08/13/2024

July 2024

June 2024

May 2024

Emergency Preparedness: Are You Ready?
05/28/2024

Farewell from the 2023/24 Social Work Interns
05/28/2024

Gina on the Horizon
05/28/2024

Mark Your Calendars for the Healthy Aging Research California Virtual Summit
05/28/2024

Meet Our New Development Associate
05/28/2024

Putting the Strategic Plan into Practice
05/28/2024

Washington Park: Pasadena’s Rediscovered Gem
05/28/2024

Introducing Civil Rights Discussions
05/22/2024

Rumor of Humor #2416
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2417
05/14/2024

Rumor of Humor #2418
05/14/2024

Springtime Visitors
05/07/2024

Freezing for a Good Cause – Credit, That Is
05/02/2024

No Discussion Meeting on May 3rd
05/02/2024

An Apparently Normal Person Author Presentation and Book-signing
05/01/2024

Flintridge Center: Pasadena Village’s Neighbor That Changes Lives
05/01/2024

Pasadena Celebrates Older Americans Month 2024
05/01/2024

The 2024 Pasadena Village Volunteer Appreciation Lunch
05/01/2024

Woman of the Year: Katy Townsend
05/01/2024

April 2024

March 2024

February 2024

January 2024

Strategies for “Pandemic Disturbing Ennui"

By John Tuite
Posted: 08/19/2020
Tags:
In honor of Labor Day, I want to put you to work.  We need some good ideas,
recommendations, suggestions, experiences, advice and counsel, guidance.

We’ve been living in something of a bomb shelter for six months.  When we
leave the trenches and chance an encounter in “no man’s land”, we strap on our gas
masks, wash hands for minimum required time, and spray ourselves with
protective chemicals!  Even then our fortune and future depends on the speed and
aim of microscopic viral spots hovering in aerosol droplets.  Even prescribed
protective distances aren’t absolutely safe, nor the assurances of plumbers, pest
controllers, or pizza men.  

What’s the result of this challenge to our security, our health, and our peace of mind?  
I heard a new term for it this week: “pandemic ennui”!  But “ennui” seems altogether
too quiet for this worrisome, threatening, invisible ogre.  Let’s add “disturbing”:
“pandemic disturbing ennui”.  (“ennui”: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction
arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.)

Wouldn’t it be nice if this forced isolation were guaranteed to be over by November, like (perhaps) the other major present, but political and threatening disturbance in our lives.  
But that isn’t possible!  We haven’t learned how to get this under control.  We may be
in the same bomb shelter next September.  And that’s why I’m putting this subject on today’s agenda:  What are your best strategies, what’s your best mechanism, how do you suggest we supplement our daily life to handle this crisis?  How can we support  each other?  After all, we’ve bonded over the last few years, don’t we owe each other  some support?  Isn’t that the idea of the Village?  To support each other in our aging years?

 I’m looking for concrete suggestions and ideas that others of us haven’t thought
of yet.  I’m looking for other than the mundane as well as the mundane!  How can we best, with each other’s help, get through this next year?  Put on your empathic cape and share your best notions. It’s for the good of that guy across from you!John Tuite


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