So how are you going on the stockpiling? Do you have a toilet paper mountain? Do you have a hill of beans and a mound of meat to chew on, along with a lagoon of wine from which to sip these long and lonely evenings?
Bravo bravo, but remember that the state of the mind is as important as the state of the belly, as the wise have known forever. Consider this, from Sa'adi the Persian poet who lived and died 800 years ago.
If thou of fortune be bereft
And of thy store alone are left
Two loaves, sell one, and with the dole,
Buy hyacinths to feed the soul.
I'm not sure about the hyacinths, but the principle is sound. Man does not live by bread alone, nor yet by toilet roll. For just as a dog in the pound pines and eventually gives up the will to live, so we, as social creatures, pine without the stimulus of others. People held too long in isolation go mad. So if we are forced, as much of the world has been forced, into a state of quarantine, what will save us, what are our soul-feeding hyacinths?
Well first there's that old friend of the lonely, the television and its sprawling cousin the internet. There's some good stuff on television these days, fictions that grip and documentaries that delve, but they remain the exceptions. And even the best television doesn't fully satisfy the viewer, for the simple reason that to watch television is to be passive. There is nothing to do but absorb the images and sounds, and mere passivity is never enough for us. We want to take part. You don't take part with television. But you do with the printed word.