I admitted last week to having experienced an existential COVID crisis. Why am I here? What’s the point of me being here? What’s the point of anyone being here unless of course, you’re a physician, nurse, healthcare worker, grocery store worker, sanitary worker, or any other essential service worker. Bill Murray has an opinion. Not about me specifically, although I’m sure he’d have lots to say, but about our current situation.

The first tangible response I had to the pandemic was, “I am unimportant”. Frontline healthcare workers and essential workers, they matter. Everyone in the middle needs to stay out of the way. I am part of the middle. Cue the existential dread. If you had the choice of being stranded on a desert island with a doctor or a visual artist/writer/yogi/ whatever the hell I am, who would you chose?

This is the second time in so many months that I’ve written about a Japanese term. Admittedly I know little about Japanese culture. I do love Whistler sushi, however. Spice agedashi tofu aside, in this time of COVID-19 I couldn’t help but think about the concept of hikikomori, or “pulling inward”.