I realised that whenever I view the stories of different people on instagram, my brows gets furrowed. And I wasn’t even aware of it until one day after viewing like some ten posts, I finally stumbled upon a meme which made me laugh. Suddenly I became aware of my facial changes and I literally felt my forehead and nose relaxing. I don’t know if it happens to any of you, but if it does, read on to know more on how the media has made my brows furrow in the first place. 

The one thing that the whole world could agree without a doubt is the fact that the year 2020 sucks. And it’s not just because of the pandemic and the quarantine situation. Although many of the other issues are like the byproducts of the pandemic. The major one being the economic situation. To be honest even the so-called privileged might have gotten a raw deal out of it. Many lost their jobs and their livelihoods because of it. And so many others have lost their life too. But the economic crisis is a depressing topic. Let’s talk about an even more depressing topic. 

We all thought that the environment was getting better because people are staying in. Sure our ecosystem has rejuvenated. But within the first six months of the year our country have had faced forest fires, floods, numerous earthquakes, a cyclone, locust pest attack and let’s not forget the pandemic virus. The Corona virus is having a ball in India. And now even the health workers are getting affected by it. Yet the people have this nonchalant attitude that they will not get affected by it. I don’t know about you, but I am someone who gets affected by these news. In fact my brows are already furrowed. So imagine seeing all these news and more on a daily basis for months. 

Now this isn’t an article talking about mental health because quite honestly I am not sure how that works. But let me tell you about something that is really distressing to me personally. One day after I realised that I furrow my brows quite a lot I decided to check up on my family as well. I saw that my father had the same habit. So while he was looking at the phone, I went and tried to smooth out those ridges that formed between his brows. I tried and I tried. And then he asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was trying to make him look more relaxed. But he said that he was relaxed. Yet the mark was still there. And that’s when it hit me. The new mark was already permanent. 

We have always read tragic stories from around the globe. Even when the Corona virus was first seen in China, we were still living our life as usual. But now, all we can do after hearing all these stories is to just take a deep breath and move on to the next tragic story. The worst part is that nowadays we have even more time to dedicate to the media. And what they do is show the travesties over and over again on repeat. And just like that our brows will never get back to their original state. There will be no more future plans to distract us from the stories or otherwise.

It is not easy to live without hope. I had a hope that I would be able to go back to college when it was time for the academic year. But it’s been one month since my online classes have started. I found that usually pandemics last for like one or two years. But that was a hundred years back when social distancing was pretty easy and we didn’t have this much population in the world. 

I know that this post is depressing. And I know that it is the thoughts of a cynical person. But this is my coping method. And I urge you to find your coping method too. Be it an art form or just tending to your plants or cooking or working out. Do something which makes you want to wake up in the morning. I didn’t have any until I decided to write again. It could be stupid but it’s something. And until I can drink the black tea from my college canteen, I will have to deal with the situation somehow.