Day 9 - Untitled

Thursday.

It has been an intense day of work. A lot of groping in the dark while I try to find a number of things: a good research question, good ways to answer the question, what others have said about the topic, and what value I can bring to the table amidst all the signal and noise. Sometimes it is pretty scary because there are always these feelings like "there's so much I don't know!", "what if I never find the Goldilocks question* ?" or "everything's been done already!"..

• Goldilocks question - not too big, not too small, just right for the purpose of the project

The good thing about having gone through the process many times I know that eventually a click will happen. No amount of panicking will get me there. It is a process that needs time, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. I've learnt not to chain myself to my desk because inspiration strikes at random places such as at the sink when I'm washing dishes, or in the garden weeding. The park helps a lot too, but oh well. The house will do.

This morning I harvested a whole lot of kaffir lime leaves from my tree so that it will produce new leaves and more limes. Sorted the leaves into two grades: Grade A for eating and Grade B for footbathing. Texted my neighbour to see if she wanted some to cook with, and she responded yes and traded me some curry leaves. Yay to boomerang acts of giving!

Had a work call this morning in which we chatted about the possible outcomes of the Covid-19 situation. Here are some thoughts and speculations:

• The countries which are not reacting quickly enough to the Covid19 may end up having their borders closed longer than others (or not getting entry into most countries), so international/regional events may see the exclusion of citizens of certain countries, if they resume. I don't think that international events will be as feasible and regular anymore with the onset of a severe economic downturn globally.
• The countries which emerge the quickest from this may have the advantage of providing for the world - like how the US got wealthier after WW2 because it was relatively unscathed by the war and could resume production quickly. East Asia may win on this one.
• We may be looking at big shifts in geopolitics. So far it seems that China will emerge victorious against the US, in its demonstration of soft power against Trump's paltry leadership. Individualism may give way to collectivism, which is not entirely a bad thing, however countries may swing towards authoritarianism.

I also read that there may be global shortages of food as countries stop exporting to keep the food within borders. It is a rather scary prospect. Hoarding makes things worse for everyone, not hoarding may expose oneself to vulnerabilities. Why does everything end up as a prisoner's dilemma somehow?