It’s been almost five months since Governor Newsom declared the state of emergency in California. That’s when the coronavirus pandemic started for me. Almost five months later, I haven’t taken a flight anywhere, I probably haven’t traveled more than 50 miles.
This is a unique moment in our lives in many ways. We had grown up on a techno optimist world living through constant breakthroughs: mass produced electric cars, mega jumbo planes flying the planet, unprecedented connectedness, a vertiginous pace of knowledge creation, etc.
All of this came to a sudden halt this year. Suddenly air connections were broken. You would read that there was only one flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt every week! It all felt like we were back to the 1960s when all of the global connections we came to take for granted didn’t exist.
It is amazing that a virus brought all of our lives to a halt. Our best means of combating it are rooted in medieval techniques: wash hands, stay at home. All of that techno-optimism was of little use.
In many ways, this year might be the year of contemplation. We’ve probably never had so much disposable time in our hands. It’s working great for me. In March, I was in the middle of my artificial intelligence course, and I welcomed a break in travel and a frenetical life. Today, I just finished my Machine Learning for Trading course. I am looking forward to my three week vacation before the start of my next course to read some books.
On the not so positive side, it is tough not to know when will we be able to go back to ‘normal’ and see friends and family as we used to.
In the meantime, I continue enjoying the quarantine with a very predictable routine: work, study, read, run, swim, cook, watch TV, sleep, repeat. I’m enjoying it.