#20 - 25 Surprising Things I Miss About the Pre-Pandemic World 🦠
The Onion, $GME, and How China Broke Recycling For the World
Hello! 👋🏽
Welcome to the Long Way Home🏡, where I try to bring you my thoughts and findings on topics like emotional intelligence, creativity, and happiness. Today marks the 20th issue of LWH🏡. Five months of consistently writing essays for a slowly but surely growing audience (thank you so much for reading) has been a blessing in more ways than one. I've connected with people on the internet that inspire me to write thought-provoking and honest work, and I'm thrilled to have an outlet that forces me to practice writing.
This week is going to be a little different. In today's short issue, I'm going to be sharing my first piece of writing about the pandemic. Before that, however, some of my favourite finds from this week.
In this week's LWH🏡:
💫 - 25 Surprising Things I Miss About the Pre-Pandemic World by Vandan Jhaveri
🎥 - Gamestop has taken over the stock market by One Minute Man (Barstool Sports)
🎙- Scott Dikker: Lessons Learned Building The Onion by Compound Writing
🎥 - How China Broke The World's Recycling by Wendover Productions
25 Surprising Things I Miss About the Pre-Pandemic World
These past two weeks especially, I've begun to feel the burden of quarantine life. I've never been so acquainted with the topography of my ceiling stucco or the gaps between the floorboards in my bedroom. Ten months have passed since the beginning of all this and I'm only now truly itching for social engagement. I'm not sure what changed. It could be nothing. It could be that all my cups are finally empty and nobody is permitted close enough to fill them.
I've intentionally avoided writing about the pandemic. It feels like a tired topic, and of the countless, brilliant writers who've tackled it, I don't think my perspective is all that unique or valuable. The gist: it sucks, we want it to end ASAP, and we feel for those that have lost and are losing so much every day due to this virus. As a planet, we're craving normalcy, myself included. No surprises.
Today I'm writing about it because I don't feel like I could do really any other topic justice. My heart's not in it. I mulled over my options and thought about writing about some of the joys of working from home, or some of the phenomenal things that have come from the pandemic (of which there are many), or some things from pre-pandemic life I'm happy to have avoided for almost a year. But the cheer would have been fabricated, the optimism noticeably forced.
So I'm allowing myself a morose list of 25 things that I'm missing from my pre-pandemic life that I never thought I'd want back. Twenty five things that I'm guaranteed to groan about shortly after life picks back up where it left off, but right now, in this moment, I'd happily take.
In no particular order:
I miss having to stand on a packed subway car.
I miss getting a hoarse voice after a night at a bar from yelling just to be heard for a few hours.
I miss trying to find the right music while driving home late at night.
I miss knowing the gas prices because I'm regularly filling up the gas in my car.
I miss waiting for a long time for my food at a restaurant.
I miss walking up a flight or two of stairs with a colleague while talking, and then trying to not look winded so I don't seem so unhealthy.
I miss feeling like topics from the evening news were so irrelevant to my daily life.
I miss worrying about whether my lunch is going to smell funny to co-workers.
I miss approaching an old work colleague and not knowing whether we have a hug or a handshake type of relationship.
I miss trying to calculate my tip while the server is hovering a little too closely.
I miss decide what to get at a new fast-food place and feeling the growing irritation of those waiting in line behind me.
I miss smelling my dress shirts before work to see if they're clean enough to wear.
I miss randomly remembering a friend I haven't hard from in 6 months and asking them if they want to do something next Friday night.
I miss standing in the cold, waiting in a line to get into a club.
I miss monotonous back-and-forths with my girlfriend as we try to decide where to eat.
I miss stepping out a few minutes before I need to leave so that I can warm up the car.
I miss awkward elevator small-talk with people who work in the same building as me.
I miss ending a conversation with a colleague and discovering that we are going to be walking in the same direction.
I miss catching a whiff of unpleasant body odour as I pass somebody in the hallway.
I miss customer service reps asking me every 45 seconds if I could use a hand to find my size.
I miss realizing that I forgot my laptop charger as soon as I arrive at Starbucks.
I miss not being able to find the other 35lb-dumbbell at the gym.
I miss the tiny bits of hair that falls all over my face before I get home after a fresh haircut.
I miss feeling like working from home all the time would fix all of my problems.
I miss the life that I used to have.
I wish everybody a safe and cheerful winter as we slowly move to recovery over the next couple of months. Take care of yourself during these continuously challenging times. Please feel free to respond to this email or DM me on Twitter if you’re ever looking for a chat. I’d love to hear from you.
Eagerly,
Vandan 🏡
@vandan_jhaveri
📽️ - Easy Peasy Short-Squeezy
You need to have been living under a rock to not have heard of the $GME stock this past week. It's a fascinating story with far-reaching implications, but of all the short-form pieces of content I've seen talking about this fiasco, this 5-minute clip posted by Barstool Sports is the most informative—and the most entertaining. Even if you've been keeping up with the story, I'd still recommend watching the clip. Find out why we're likely living through one of the most important (non-COVID-related) financial stories in recent memory.
🎙️ - Tears of Joy
My favourite writing group on the internet, Compound Writing, has a podcast where the publish weekly conversations with internet writers and creators that hit on their origin stories and best practices for success. Last week, Stew spoke with Scott Dikker, creator of The Onion, satirical editorial extraordinaire.
I discovered The Onion when I was in high school. It felt magical to me that there was a publication out there for which no topic was too touchy, no subject to sacred for ridicule. It turns out that writing some of the best jokes in the game is serious business. Find out how Scott creates a true meritocracy in The Onion's writer's room so that the best ideas win the day, every day.
📽️ - How Do You Like Them Plastics?
My How To Save A Planet binge has sent me down many climate-related rabbit holes. One of these led me to discover a YouTube channel with hours of well-researched, relevant, and unpredictable content called Wendover Productions. Their video about how a little known-about 2017 regulation change in China's plastic purchasing policies upheaved the economics of plastic recycling worldwide, in the wrong direction. I know that the last thing we need is some bad news about the environment, but I use knowledge like this to make more informed decisions about my consumption. Find out how China stopped losing money by no longer agreeing to process the world's trash.