My Isolation Manifesto 2022

Photo Credit: Huma Kabakci (2021)

I am currently on my day 5 of isolation due to contracting the super-spreader Omicron variant…Funnily enough, my positive Pcr test result arrived right on time for Christmas Eve. This year for the holidays, I am now alone with a weird feeling of isolation and the realisation that my body actually needed self-care more than ever. The end of the year is always an arduous time, where we are left with evaluating our progress, achievements, and ‘success’ without really considering our well-being or happiness. Whilst waiting patiently to recover, whether by listening to my favourite podcast or binge-watching my guilty pleasure TV show on Netflix, I am trying desperately to run away from my fears, frustrations, and over-thinking.

Nearly two years on, following the Covid-19 outbreak, I am faced with my own confinement. Inevitably, I cannot stop but think of Olivia Laing’s acclaimed book titled Lonely City (2016), where the author conducts an eclectic, captivating investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed through art and culture. My mind keeps going back and forth between the terms isolation, loneliness, and solitude. Can one be content alone? Or do we need to learn or even unlearn certain things to love and accept ourselves in confinement?

Photo Credit: Huma Kabakci, Bodrum (2020)

“I don’t believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it’s about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted.”

― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

Thinking of all the things I accomplished, conversations I have had, the difficult times I had to go through in the last year, the thing that stuck with me the most has been learning my self-worth and caring for my needs before others. We often forget to really listen to ourselves and drive our body and mind’s limit to the fullest without considering the consequences. With only a few days until 2022, I have therefore written my own Manifesto that I hope to inspire and motivate others with:

MY 2022 MANIFESTO — WRITTEN FROM MY BED

1. Worry less, it is not worth it.
2. Eat well and only when you are actually hungry.
3. Be kind to yourself and others.
4. Give your own self-worth, or else no one will.
5. Listen to your body and intution.
6. Believe that you are creative.
7. You can be happy alone.
8. Love, love dearly, love unconditionally…but love yourself first.
9. Respect yourself, others around you and accept that you are perfectly imperfect.
10. Listen, listenning has greater power than talking over.
11. Be curious and open to learning.
12. Build on your own skills.
13. Read.
14. Find time to do absolutely NOTHING.
15. Travel more in 2022.
16. Be fearless.
17. Stop carrying others’ shame, guilt and anger.
18. Focus on yourself rather than people around you.
19. Stop doubting your capacity.
20. Last but not least…surround yourself with good, positive people.

This is my Manifesto. What is yours?

HK