Ask HN: How is everyone feeling?

Not all that well, personally. I try to hunker down and concentrate, but it's hard to remind myself that my work matters.

It doesn't help that both my husband and I clearly have a light case of the virus. It's a mild fever and a cough, and it appears to be getting better. (Certainly we are taking no chances! And have been in the house for 8 days already.) But feeling crappy only adds to the difficulties.

And yet I know we're the lucky ones. We both have worked at home for decades, so the "lifestyle" is nothing new; we aren't in danger of losing our incomes; we have health insurance; and we have cash in the bank.

One thing that has helped is setting up regular Zoom meetings to get together with friends. No agenda, no "let's try to concentrate on work" chat, just... hanging out together.

As Spider Robinson wrote so eloquently: Shared joy increases, shared pain decreases.

I've been great, thanks for asking. It's a good way to spend time with family, clean up the house, learn new home based skills. I think all the zombie/war/survival games and movies have mentally prepared me well for this.

We had a blackout last night, and fish supplier messed up delivery over the weekend because of the broken supply chain. There's been trouble but that's fine. The kids were scared so they found comfort with the grandparents.

It might be a cultural thing though. It seems harder on the West, because we see movies like Contagion suggesting that society would break down and people would trample each other, riot, loot. Maybe the reason toilet paper sold out is because it's a way to cling to society. Anxiety is contagious.

I think there's been a healthy level of fear in Malaysia, with people keeping 1 meter apart in stores, everyone buying bread instead of eating out. It's been easier to shop for groceries and work. There are citizen calls for a full China-style lockdown. Some apartment complexes are doing "concerts", basically group karaoke blaring loud music, led by the person with the biggest speakers. We're experimenting with recipes, ways to replace lattes with instant coffee, and lots of friends I haven't seen for years are playing games online together.

I could get used to this; society feels too crowded and yet fragmented otherwise. But now it feels like we've come together as one big family. A related book is Tribe, by S. Junger, who suggests that people are happiest in difficult times, and all that is gone when society returns to normal.

To be honest it is kinda depressing, to see the numbers, and realizing that there are lives, and family members who have lost their dear ones, and may be affected behind the dots in the statistic. Hoping and praying that people will have the necessary strength to wade this through.

I’m doing absolutely fine, business-wise the industry I’m in doesn’t seem too affected (I’m still getting clients reaching out to me) and the virus situation actually caused some very bad tax changes to be postponed.

My biggest problem at the moment is my flatmate. She’s been very anxious about this whole thing and is guzzling the social-media misinformation, FUD and conspiracy theories 24/24.

the media storm has been the most disheartening thing to me. the media (all media: the news, social, tv, print) exist to serve your eyeballs to advertisers. the biggest, scariest headlines win, and it really seems like outlets are only too keen to exploit that right now. the signal to noise ratio right now is MINUSCULE, with "experts" and talking heads and human interest stories dominating.

please try to convince your flatmate (as I do everyone around me) that the media will gladly firehose useless panic mongering, as long as it keeps people around past the commercial break. it's difficult to disconnect, but our mental health depends on it. take in what you need to know for the day, and no more.