...and with that we were back in lockdown in all but name.
The UK has flip flopped between lockdown and not locking down, a policy which has both crippled the economy and led to one of the highest per capita death rates in the world.
While in lockdown and restricted to mail order only, "good" businesses on average do around 30% of their usual turnover. 60% is break even - some managed to claw back to 77% in October which was pretty damn excellent, but then November wiped that out and December goes out with a whimper with orders to close with one hour notice.
This is our government. Life changing decisions with no notice.
Opposite me is a cafe. Ezra and Gil. They have to buy in food. Food doesn't miraculously get pooed out of the sky into the fridge each day - there are logistical issues - how much to buy in, to last how long - and with the small margins in the restaurant industry binning a week's worth of food - repeatedly - is a guaranteed road to bankruptcy.
No notice.
Again.
Surprise!!!
In other news they are finally making the links between mental health and repeatedly going in and out of lockdown. In particular the idea of the Blitz spirit that saw England fight alone against the Nazis without breaking. But it turns out we did break, much later.
The key to understanding living under perpetual stress is the amygdala, and what it does. You see, your amgdala is the starting point for your adrono-response system. Its the thing that primes the pump for your fight flight response by releasing cortisol into your body.
Cortisol is great. You hear the growl of the sabertooth tiger, and your stress buddy is there to help your muscles get ready to rumble. It tells your glucose to get to your muscles and start them up. People do superhuman things under the effects of adrenaline - I've seen them, I've even done them myself. But they'd be nothing without cortisol activating that natural energy high. Run. Fight. Survive.
Only...
Against an enemy that you can't see, that you can't escape or evade or fight - like a bad boss or a hostile workplace or a mutant viral strain... Turns out cortisol is a bit shit. Its still activating your glucose, but then you are just sitting there at your PC, wondering whether you can summon up enough energy to eat all your stockpiled toilet paper.
Fuck that shit says cortisol. You are burning glucose, buddy. I'm telling you - burn glucose. And you better replace that glucose by binge eating sugar.
That's probably why we are hunter gatherers in the first place. Once you've hunted that mammoth, nothing says victory like some sweet sweet berry action.
During lockdown we are trapped in the viral trenches. We are sheltering in place against the Flu-twaffe, hoping against hope that we dodge the bullet today. Perpetual fear and stress and loss of agency changes you. It can't not. Your brain is fighting your body every single day.
Our government loves to fetishise a war from before any of them were born without for a second understanding the effects of it. Like the armchair generals of WWI they are distanced from even the sound of the guns. If you work retail, or in education, or healthcare you don't have that luxury. We don't get to work from home - our biggest concerns not when our stockpile of toilet roll will run out or whether that Amazon delivery will arrive, but whether our jobs and businesses and ourselves will survive.
They call us non essential businesses but what they really mean is disposable. They know that restaurants, cafes, game stores - somebody will step in once we are gone to rebuild us from the wreckage of the high street. Mike Ashley will make a bid on our guts to turn them into glue.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You were not designed to fight this war. You should have been hunting and foraging on the plains of the Serengeti. You were built to hunt mammoth and arise henge monuments, and we do that together, as a group, as a tribe, as a species, as a community.
And that was always our greatest strength.
Our togetherness.
Humans need each other. Alone, we are frightened and afraid. Alone we are weak. That's what your cortisol is telling you while you are eating your own body weight in M&M's. 'Cos the sugar you really need to crack that fear craving is human.
Human sugar baby.
And that, dear friends, is my resolution for twenty twenty one. Human sugar.