What to Do With the Weird Things You Learn About Yourself in Isolation
Quarantine has illuminated my most annoying traits. But that might be a good thing.
Journalist Rebecca Solnit recently wrote in the New York Times that “every disaster shakes loose the old order,” and though she was talking about political regimes, I’m finding it to be true of personal behaviors as well. Like many Americans, my wife Alex and I are self-isolating at home, and while we’re thankful that our conditions are comfortable (read: we don’t have kids), the unprecedented amount of time we’re spending together has illuminated a few of my more unsettling traits.
I shuddered when these things were first brought to my attention, but now I’m trying to grapple with them. After all, it’s only when we truly know who we are that we can redesign who we want to be. Here’s what I’m starting with first:
I’m inconsiderately loud
There’s no way around it: I’m too loud.
First, I’m a loud typer. I attack my laptop, clacking at the keys as though my computer were really a typewriter. When I get excited about a thought, or when several thoughts demand to exit my mind in quick succession, it takes all the restraint I can muster to keep my hands from flying away from my…
