Dose of Optimism #15

What’s your pandemic emoji?

 

Can you imagine if this pandemic happened 20 years ago? Before we all had smartphones, tablets, and high speed internet? No Zoom, Skype, YouTube or Netflix? This all would have been radically different – and much more difficult.

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We have the luxury of being able to complain that, even while isolating, we “see” each other TOO much.  Maybe I don’t feel like doing my hair (or putting on pants) for that next video call?   Sometimes we just don’t want to see people on video.  Communication can feel like a chore.  We might not even want to use whole sentences or even words.  In these crazy corona times sometimes just a simple image, GIF or meme says it all.

And of course… emojis.

Emojis might be the perfect panacea for these troubling times. One little icon saves us not only typing, but also explanations. They are instantly relatable, understandable, and efficient. Sure, in the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 people recorded their thoughts in diaries and wrote one another letters. Us?  We post TikTok videos and text emojis.

But those emojis can tell a lot about the way we are feeling these days.  Maybe you send a lot of hearts and thankful hands to your friends and family. Or perhaps you are sending images of food or wine glasses.  And all those face images? Maybe lots of sad faces and eyerolls, but hopefully some happy faces too.  Whatever they are, they are part of the visual vocabulary you are using and it probably says a lot about the way you are feeling.

So here’s an exercise: Stop for a moment and think about the six emojis that reflect your experience during this pandemic. What would they be? Are they positive or negative?  And, if they are negative, what are the kind of positive emojis do you WISH were reflecting your experience? 

 

Now look at your phone and your emoji keypad. What are the first six emojis you see? How do they relate to the same as the ones you thought of?  What are those six emojis telling you about the way you have been thinking and texting… about how you have been living these past 8 weeks?

 

Regardless of what the emojis are, remember that you have the ability to choose them, just the same way you can choose how you can encounter these difficult days.  And when you can’t find the perfect emoji to tell someone the way you feel, maybe take a few minutes to pick up the phone, write an email, or even (gasp!) a letter. 

Just like we would have done 20 years ago.

 

Some things we have been reading (and writing) to keep us optimistic this week….

 

Seth Cohen