Mindfully Together

I was a little concerned to hear that my son routinely orders takeout during the stay-in-place order in California, sometimes using doordash, sometimes the restaurants deliver. He convinced me it was safe. Moreover, thanks to the technology industry workers’ ability to work from home and continue to be productive during the pandemic, he said it made sense to support local restaurants by ordering takeout and supporting the economy. So far, I had been apprehensive in ordering restaurant food during the virus outbreak. On his insistence, I looked up safety precautions connected with takeouts, such as ordering hot food, requesting the delivery people to leave the package outside, using gloves to bring the food indoors, wiping clean the containers with clorox, removing the food into personal containers, discarding the takeout containers and finally microwave/heat the food before consuming it. These days the longer the list of precautions, the more comfortable I felt. Takeout seemed like an attractive option after having prepared and eaten home cooked meals all these days. And when my son put it in perspective, it felt good to do your small part towards the economy.

"The economy" comes up time and again during discussions in connection to the pandemic safety measures like social distancing. Though there are many industries that are suffering badly, my salute and three cheers go to the infrastructure built over the last decade to connect remote users, which is keeping our economy and society afloat. I have been a part of the global economy built by the technology industry, for which remote work is crucial. Despite sporadic hurdles against remote work; like Yahoo! banning working from home in 2013, and many tech companies following the lead; the industry did see an advancement in tools, technologies and processes to collaborate effectively despite the separation by physical distance, due to its obvious advantages. 

With announcements of State emergencies and lockdowns, most of the tech companies and workers were able to seamlessly fall to full time remote work and continue to be productive. The work done over the past decade in e-learning came to the rescue of most universities, with students continuing to attend classes remotely during the pandemic. The advances in telemedicine and telehealth came to the forefront, with software like Amwell, in providing remote care where hospital visits would have been risky. The foundations built by the gig industry and home delivery services, such as instacart, doordash, grubhub, UberEats, amazon etc, which the millennials and younger people take for granted, is gaining more acceptance among the traditional minded folks. 

Of course, working from home, means staying at home - all the time! Not the greatest option for us social beings. The number of jokes spiked on social media about how men are “working from home”, as in, doing housework and entertaining kids!! Cliched jokes about long-time couples finding creative ways to social-distance from one another. In this time of forced home arrest, smart social beings are busy finding creative ways to continue fostering their social connections. As Zoom and Slack stock skyrockets, folks are holding virtual coffee huddles and Friday night beer with co-workers across the globe to boost morale. On the home front, people are remotely connecting together with friends and family for virtual parties with pictionary, singing together, playing poker or celebrate birthday parties. There are exercise and dance classes, even meditation and prayers together. You name it, and it can be done remotely! There are celebrity live streams and virtual concerts. Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming entertainment have become the safe choices, which are also a doctor friend’s prescription to reduce covid anxiety, especially in times when news media has nothing else to talk about. 

Only recently, I was marveling at the mobile networks, availability of high speed/broadband connectivity and mainstream access to WiFi and other network connectivity. I was wondering how not just Gen Z or Millennials, but even the older population is starting to depend on social media, chat groups, texting, phones are other telecommunication mechanisms to stay connected to family and friends. A decade ago, social distancing for weeks would have been very difficult to pull through. Human beings are social animals, and have a need for community. In today's era of physical distancing, in the middle of the worst pandemic, the advancements in remote and streaming technologies have come as a blessing, and opened a whole new possibility of Mindful Togetherness.