+ or - ?

Positive:  Favorable, desirable by those interested or invested in that which is being judged.
Negative: Damaging; undesirable; unfavorable; pessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.

Hmm.  I wonder which of those two definitions best describe me?  Some of this we can all chalk up to human nature - there is bad stuff out there that can kill us dead quicker than good stuff can ease our woes.  We're naturally hyper-aware of threat, real or imagined.

My tendency is to look at quarantine or self-isolation or whatever you want to call this state of affairs as a negative thing.  I miss attending meetings and seeing people face to face so that line of thinking is firmly in the Negative category.  However, when I'm on a virtual Zoom meeting and someone who irritates me is talking I can simply mute that individual.  It can be very peaceful watching the lips of an objectionable person flap around without having to hear the irritating thoughts coming out.  I stare into the camera with an intense, interested, engaged look on my face - if the person sees me they probably assume I'm fascinated by the thoughts they're sharing when in reality I'm fascinated by the weird facial expressions people make when they're talking.  I try to lip read.   One guy this morning appeared to keep repeating the phrase "back fat."  I wonder what that was all about.

I don't have to get up as early to get to a meeting and I can get to more meetings than normal because all I have to do is wander over to my computer.  Positive things.  I don't have to pretend to like someone I don't like.  Positive thing.  My coffee is a hell of a lot better.

Mostly, I am trying to enjoy the slowness, the quiet, the lack of urgency that is the result of having nothing to do.  The Type A, competitive, ants-in-the-pants nature of my personality is trying to relax into the stillness.  Not all that successfully but a lot more successfully than I would have imagined.  When we were on our last cruise - a long three week affair that touched on seven countries - we would occasionally have sea days when the ship was moving between ports.  There wasn't much to do besides read and eat and hop onto the exercise bike for an hour.  At first I chafed at these restrictions but sometimes I was worn out and it felt good to not even have the option of doing something "productive."