There's only one person you can count on.

At times of crisis people usually cling to nostalgia. It gives them memories of happier times, of the knowledge that the balance might be restored and everything will go on as before. 

This week I have been put through the wringer with stress, but instead of becoming overly sentimental I have done the opposite; I have purged. 

I have reduced my life to the one thing I can rely on: me alone.

Marie Kondo would be proud. Of my 300+ emails, around 280 of them apparently didn't spark joy, mostly because they were thankless tasks I had to deal with on behalf of other people. The others were subscriptions to newsletters trying to sell me something. They've gone. 

What were the 35,000 photos I had in my files? It turns out that about two thirds of those were redundant. Often taken because I thought they might give someone else pleasure and now they are sitting taking up hard drive space, unappreciated and probably never even looked at. They've gone. And when I have renewed energy I will probably delete even more. My memories are there though and that's what counts.

My social media? Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Words with Friends...? All gone. Of course they don't make it that easy to remove, so they are probably in the ether somewhere. I didn't bother giving great proclamations of why I'm doing it before I exited because I don't want the discussions. I just want out. 

Because when things get sticky one thing becomes apparent above all else and that is that people are selfish. They are primarily concerned with how their lives alone are affected. They see themselves as the pebble in the pond and don't look back to watch the ripples radiate. 

In a world like that, the only way to survive is to become just like them. And so I'm pulling down the shutters on my emotions, zipping up my need to communicate constantly and just living from minute to minute rather than in the past or the future.