Day 42 of quarantine 2020

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Learning that the definition of quarantine is a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed. Learning that the meaning of this time of restriction and government control is not just about confinement, but the realisation of how life operates when operations cease and society itself is "placed" on pause. 

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There is an unsettling sense of privilege I find myself loathing day after day of this waiting period. Where my fortunate and safe state of living reminds me repeatedly of the associated guilt I carry, like a wasp constantly flying around you, preying with a potential of danger in the tail of their sting. My "luck" bothers me with a niggling itch that I don't deserve this contemplative space in a time of high global stress. 

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I sit in my front room studio as I write this, perhaps quarantine is the seizure of the understanding of what our freedom means, and that freedom is just another fantasy we feel we deserve. 

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Sometimes I don't want freedom, because it means more time I feel obliged to use, that I have nothing to fill with and therefore, I have nothing to give. 

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