How seriously we are all craving social contact. As I do my daily walks around town these mornings, I’ll wave or say “Good morning” to anybody and everybody. That’s why, when a friend I hadn’t seen in months pulled up in his car, I jumped at the chance to talk – he in his car, I two metres away. We talked about work, or lack of it. Then, I asked how his family was doing, in particular his university-age daughter.

“Well, to be honest, not great,” he said, “COVID.”

“Really?” I said, thinking that she’s awfully young to be infected.

“No, not that. The isolation at university, never leaving residence.”

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Composer Viktor Ullmann, imprisoned but not silenced.

Imagine a curfew keeping you inside your home. You can. Imagine quarantine as if it were imprisonment. You can. Then, imagine coming up with a unique way to deal with your isolation by turning to one of your life skills. I imagine that you can do that too.

That’s what Victor Ullmann did, in 1942. Imprisoned at a place called Terezin, a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Bohemia, Ullmann, a music composer by profession, wrote an opera inside the prison depicting his predicament. It was called The Emperor of Atlantis.

“It’s a (musical) parable about a mad, murderous ruler,” wrote a reviewer years later, “who proclaims universal war.” (more…)

Ted Barris

author | journalist

Posts with the isolation tag

Alone and unhealthy

From isolation can come greatness