My sense of recent history is a mess; sometimes I can t rightly say what happened, when. I tell people about something I did two years ago and it turns out it was late last year. And still, like all of us, I m still effectively in the moment that unfolded in March.
I recall realising even before we went into our pandemic lockdown that what a lot of what people – including me – were doing was a matter of processing anxiety in public. It was evident, vividly, on social media, where sometimes we expressed it by policing each other, shouting at each other , drawing lines, letting fly. Heartbreakingly, I found myself shouting desperately at old friends who began a descent into malignant conspiracy theories.