Minds immobile in the silent vat of our skulls

Day 50. I'm getting sick of this, really today I just want to cry, I'm tired of planning breakfasts and of planning dinners and of rationing whatever it is, I should save that egg so I can bake something nice on the weekend, I won't have a second cappuccino today because I'm afraid of running out of milk too soon, I'm tired of planning when and where to do groceries, I'm tired of planning when and where I can just go for a walk.

But we are not just minds immobile in the silent vat of our skulls: we are minds in movement, and we find movement intrinsically rewarding and motivating. So, the developmental move from crawling to walking illustrates in a deep way the theme of cognitive mobility as necessary for us to fully understand and participate in our physical and social worlds. The experience of walking, of movement, is the experience of a brain and mind moving through the world. And this movement in turn changes our experience of the world because the mechanisms of brain and mind are more fully engaged by movement.

Reading Shane O'Mara's In Praise of Walking is a kind of torture right now. As someone who would regularly daily rack up 8km by just, you know, going places without even going places, I feel curtailed. Walking to the mailbox or the recycle bins in the building's garage exhausts me. I am demonstrating O'Mara's theory in reverse: I am disengaging from the world and devolving.

I'm tired of rationing the sparkling mineral water, I'm tired of not being sufficiently hydrated, I should just get myself a soda maker, but of course it's sold out in this country, and the shipping charges are more than the cost of the appliance.

I'm tired of not being able to get down to work in the morning, of not getting comfortable, I still haven't figured out where to sit, where should my office be, at the kitchen counter or the dining table, I'm tired of my back hurting. My head hurts, not every day, but a lot of days. Sometimes it's after I've been for a walk, it must be allergies, my sinuses are pulsating. But I'm also overdue to have my eyes checked. My laptop screen is too small and too low, but then I shift it and I end up squinting and straining my neck. I ordered myself an ergonomic laptop stand, it shipped over two weeks ago, it may be another four weeks before it arrives.

I'm tired of doing yoga. It seemed like a good idea to sign up for the introductory offer, a limitless month. But I have limits. I can't do yoga every day. Who has the time?

I'm finding working from home extremely stressful. There's no escape:

One big problem is there's no escape. With nothing much to do and nowhere to go, people feel like they have no legitimate excuse for being unavailable.

Then there’s the fact that people have turned their living spaces into makeshift offices, making it nearly impossible to disconnect.

I'm not so bad at being unavailable. Mostly I just feel guilty about it.

I resent work for invading my life.

Then there's the fact that aspects of our lives that used to be separate – work, friends, family – are all now happening in the same space. The self-complexity theory posits that individuals have multiple aspects – context-dependent social roles, relationships, activities and goals – and we find the variety healthy, says Petriglieri. When these aspects are reduced, we become more vulnerable to negative feelings.

"Most of our social roles happen in different places, but now the context has collapsed," says Petriglieri. "Imagine if you go to a bar, and in the same bar you talk with your professors, meet your parents or date someone, isn't it weird? That's what we're doing now... We are confined in our own space, in the context of a very anxiety-provoking crisis, and our only space for interaction is a computer window."

I feel like I processed all these difficulties and emotions weeks ago, in the early days. I feel somewhat vindicated now that major news outlets have articulated them, I am validated by being part of a vast social trend.

Last night I dreamt I was in the office, it's where I work, but I didn't recognize the space at all and it was a team of people I'd never worked with before, I don't know what we were trying to get done, but someone recognized a photo on my dating app and couldn't believe anyone would be interested in Jerdkhgarwa — I couldn't catch his name, we've been messaging a while, but I don't know his name — he works there too, a real weirdo they thought, but I was interested in him and wondered why I hadn't run into him before at work. It was crowded and there was champagne at lunch. One woman accused me of procrastinating on the training she was giving me but I really had to go the bathroom.

I can't focus today at all, I'm so tired, I just want to cry.

I guess I won't be going to Paris anytime soon. I miss being kissed.