Counterflows #8: Are digital nomads better prepared for self-isolation?
The challenges of global living equip people with unexpected resilience
If you’ve seen the hashtag #DigitalNomad on Instagram, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this group of people wouldn’t cope very well during a global pandemic. Young, bikini-clad women model the latest sunglasses on Bali’s beautiful beaches, desperate to sell you a course on how you can follow in their footsteps. Hashtag “ad”, amirite?
When I first started living and working as a nomad, the movement had already existed for a few years. I became the first UK journalist to cover it during my time at The Guardian. Since then, I’ve watched its meteoric rise feeling equal parts dread and fascination.
Six years on the road have taught me that the most interesting and impressive nomads almost never subscribe to the hashtag lifestyle. In fact, for the most part, they’re keen to keep their destination plans—and fashion sense—to themselves.
For most people, the experience of going nomadic is nothing like the images you see online. You’re more likely to spend your days in coworking spaces and your evenings taking calls from other timezones than you are relaxing on the beach. When it comes to dealing with 21st-century isolation, though, nomads might be the best case study we have right now.
Isolated in paradise
It takes around two weeks for any given paradise to lose its shine.
Sure, you have work to do, but you find some extra time to explore and socialise at the beginning. You need to settle in here, after all. Before you know it, though, the novelty of the new place has faded away. You’re acclimatised. This is just your life now.
Once the excitement dies down, you note—disappointed—that you’re exactly the same person you’ve always been. You’re frustrated by all the same things you were in your previous life. You have all the same faults and flaws. Drinking with fellow travellers did not lead you to self-actualisation.
The change of scenery really hasn’t changed much. Existential thoughts flood your brain. Maybe you chose the wrong place. You start asking yourself: Is this where I should physically be in the world? Am I achieving the work/life balance I wanted? Would I be happier somewhere else?
Oh well. Here today, elsewhere tomorrow. That’s the deal.
Digital connections
During those first few weeks, you make some new friends. It feels good to connect with people again, exchange your best stories, share the oddness of life with others. But most nomads spend only a month or so in a place, and it takes time to develop deep, lasting friendships.
By default, all your nomad relationships come with egg timers attached, like that episode of Black Mirror. It makes you feel lonely. You feel a bit more listless whenever somebody leaves.
You end up doing regular Hangout and Skype sessions with your family and friends back home. You need to feel connected, and you have the technology to do that. You schedule the video calls just like you do client meetings. But the distance—the reality that you can’t just swing by—only serves to highlight the dislocation. It makes you miss everyone more.
You downplay how numb you’re feeling about everything. As you talk about the weather, beaches, and eating exotic food, you inadvertently become the Instagram model with the sunglasses. How did things end up like this?
Painful growth
Dislocated, you find yourself feeling incredibly cerebral and paying sharp attention to your mood and your mindset. What else is there to do? You’ve already seen all the tourist sites and tried all the restaurants in this place. Your new friends have moved onto other adventures. You’ve also reached the point where you kind of miss cold weather and you definitely miss toast.
Back in your ultra-busy “former” life, you never made time to analyse your day-to-day habits, let alone to understand what drives them. Maybe the exercise will prove useful now. If nothing else, it’ll be a welcome distraction.
Over the days that follow, you observe and analyse yourself like a test subject in a science experiment. You note down everything you discover. You design and implement solutions quickly. The results are promising, so you continue.
Soon, you’ve optimised your day—your whole existence, really—to run exactly as you want it to. You’ve integrated your work with the rest of your life, you’re clear on your priorities, and you feel in control of your time.
In fact, you might be more balanced, focused and happier than ever. And achieving this state required far fewer steps than the listicles had you believe.
During the COVID-19 crisis, people are experiencing the same social isolation that nomads feel living in a new place. Work and relationships suddenly default to digital. You’re obliged to keep morale up by highlighting the bright side of a shitty situation. With everything uncertain and unfamiliar, you have to adapt and learn to make sense of the noise for yourself.
It might feel overwhelming, but isolation isn’t all bad. It forces us to think about ourselves and our desires. To design and plan within restrictions. To better recognise the differences between the internal and external influences on our behaviour and actions. To know when to hit the “reset” button on how we’re spending our time.
Dislocation is all too familiar to nomads. For those moving around most often, this isolation and self-reflection process can happen as often as every few weeks. It’s disorienting, and often painful. But we emerge the other end as better, stronger people. Most of us are even keen to do it all over again ASAP.
Experiences, especially difficult ones, allow us to grow. Ultimately, this is the thing that builds our resilience and helps us know ourselves better.
This time indoors, away from distraction, offers us all the chance to review, reflect and rethink. So, as much as you can, try to embrace it as an experience. Take it from a nomad: what you learn will be useful, wherever you may find yourself in the future.
READ: “Don’t forget: disasters and crises bring out the best in people”
Dutch historian Rutger Bregman—a thinker I’ve written about before—has published this great think piece with The Correspondent. With recent examples, it explores how crises like COVID-19 cause an enormous surge in solidarity. As he puts it: “The coronavirus isn’t the only contagion—kindness, hope and charity are spreading too.”
LISTEN: “Small Cities” by The Urbanist on Monocle
People always talk about the world’s creative capitals like London, Paris and New York, but what about smaller destinations—a country’s second or third-tier cities? This episode of Monocle’s podcast The Urbanist tackles that question with reporting from Hobart in Australia (population 206k) and Boulder in the US (population 107k).
️USE: Superhuman - “the fastest email experience ever made“
I recently scored an invite to try out the much-hyped Superhuman, a.k.a. “the fastest email experience ever made”. I was sceptical beforehand (Gmail and I have been in a relationship for 13 years now), but using it truly feels like the future of email. It’s a brilliant tool for anyone looking to win the fight against their inbox.