The greatest distance between two points

[dolorosa_12]

I was working in person in the office this morning, and when the other two colleagues scheduled to work with me today showed up, the three of us (Serbian, Australian, and American immigrants) spoke for two-and-a-half hours about the prospect of a wider war in Europe. I honestly don't know how anyone can be expected to work or focus under these conditions; I've been averaging about four hours' sleep on a good night for the past three weeks. Weirdly (or perhaps not if you know anything about my personality), I find this uncertainty much more unsettling than the thought of war. It always sounds melodramatic when I say this, but I genuinely made my peace with the prospect three years ago, and decided, with a kind of burning clarity, exactly what I would choose to do in such circumstances.

I am — as of 6.15pm on 3rd March, at least — genuinely impressed with how impressively the government here has been handling the situation. Apart from one misstep (come on, you invite half of Europe to your big crisis summit strategy session, and you don't include even one leader of a Baltic country?), I really can't see any cause for criticism. The time for behaving like this was three years ago, and the next best time was last year, but (at least as of right now), at the eleventh hour, at the edge of the abyss, most of Europe is doing the right thing.

Our government has achieved the somewhat miraculous feat of its actions being praised unanimously across the entire spectrum of newspapers and TV networks, the entire spectrum of British politics (apart from, as usual, the extremes edges of left and right) is basically united on this, and I would also say that they've got public opinion on their side as well. I'm genuinely astonished.

I hope everyone else is hanging in there.

Comments

[hoarmurath]

At least we got a joint video call? For the Baltics at least. Then again - inviting just one would also have been weird, we never really do that.

For me I suppose it just feels like more of the same, though it was a wild week. I do hope you get more sleep eventually. :)

[chestnut_pod]

I am glad to hear that the public response in the UK has been broadly positive -- that's genuinely reassuring, and it's good to hear it from someone "on the ground."

[senmut]

I was quite impressed with the response over there, and grateful. Now to see if the doomsday clock can be nudged back a bit.

[lyr]

Yes, it's hard to carry on with everyday work and things when the world is on fire. I'm having that trouble too.