Scott Kelly, Who Spent a Year in Space, Shares Tips on Isolation (nytimes.com) 36
Scott Kelly, writing for The New York Times: Being stuck at home can be challenging. When I lived on the International Space Station for nearly a year, it wasn't easy. When I went to sleep, I was at work. When I woke up, I was still at work. Flying in space is probably the only job you absolutely cannot quit. But I learned some things during my time up there that I'd like to share -- because they are about to come in handy again, as we all confine ourselves at home to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Here are a few tips on living in isolation, from someone who has been there.
Follow a schedule: On the space station, my time was scheduled tightly, from the moment I woke up to when I went to sleep. Sometimes this involved a spacewalk that could last up to eight hours; other times, it involved a five-minute task, like checking on the experimental flowers I was growing in space. You will find maintaining a plan will help you and your family adjust to a different work and home life environment. When I returned to Earth, I missed the structure it provided and found it hard to live without.
But pace yourself: When you are living and working in the same place for days on end, work can have a way of taking over everything if you let it. Living in space, I deliberately paced myself because I knew I was in it for the long haul -- just like we all are today. Take time for fun activities: I met up with crewmates for movie nights, complete with snacks, and binge-watched all of "Game of Thrones" -- twice.
Follow a schedule: On the space station, my time was scheduled tightly, from the moment I woke up to when I went to sleep. Sometimes this involved a spacewalk that could last up to eight hours; other times, it involved a five-minute task, like checking on the experimental flowers I was growing in space. You will find maintaining a plan will help you and your family adjust to a different work and home life environment. When I returned to Earth, I missed the structure it provided and found it hard to live without.
But pace yourself: When you are living and working in the same place for days on end, work can have a way of taking over everything if you let it. Living in space, I deliberately paced myself because I knew I was in it for the long haul -- just like we all are today. Take time for fun activities: I met up with crewmates for movie nights, complete with snacks, and binge-watched all of "Game of Thrones" -- twice.
He was lucky (Score:2)
He could at least do some 8 hour walks and surrounding the earth multiple times during that walk, social distancing him from other people by several hundred miles.
Down here in some places we have to limit walks to 1 hour and can't be farther than a mile from home.
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A spacewalk isn't like an earth walk. It is more like stuffed in a coffin with a window and asked to perform tasks with very thick gloves. Not really an idle stroll across the park.
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And if you would have a NASA certified space suit, you would be able to walk outside as well, providing you have enough oxygen in the tanks. In those you wouldn't have to worry about getting Corona. Getting it on/off in earth-like conditions might require a second person to help you though.
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alexa (Score:2)
good tips.. reminds me of the movie "moon" (Score:3, Interesting)
Game of thrones license? (Score:3)
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That's some ivory towerism and a half (Score:3)
So his solution is to have a dedicated team of people do your scheduling. It's literally said above that this didn't work for him without this team:
"When I returned to Earth, I missed the structure it provided and found it hard to live without."
So he couldn't generate equivalent that would serve this purpose on his own.
And I strongly suspect that problem for people is not "following a schedule" but "drafting one and sticking to it without peer pressure". We humans are social creatures and tend to not function as well without peers to keep us in check.
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Yeah, there is a massive difference between keeping yourself busy and having others tell you what to do from the moment you awaken until the moment you go to sleep, every day, all the time, for weeks and weeks.
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Just curious: can't you make your own schedule?
His statement about "missed the structure it provided and found it hard to live without" wasn't that he couldn't do it without NASA. Once he got back to Earth, he says, he missed the structure of a planned day and found it hard to live without [the plan]. So I assume he started scheduling for himself. Like he's recommending you do. That's my take on reading it in context.
Jeez.
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Again, he himself said that he couldn't do it. That's what the quote above says.
Which is my entire point. He's giving an advice from position of "but when I had an entire team of professionals managing my day, I could do it". My point, as I clarified in the last paragraph above is that for most people, this purpose is largely served by their peers. It's your work colleagues to hold you to your work schedule and so on. And isolation effectively deprives people of this feedback.
Which means that his suggestion
Isn't that "normal" nowadays. (Score:1)
If you look at kids and even some grown-ups today, between the tight schedule set by their parents, school and the various things they are a member of, ... and letting "technology" corporations dictate every detail of what they are told to want and think ... in the sake of "security" (anxiety), "simplicity" or just plain old "convenience" (both actually laziness), there isn't any unmanaged time left for them to become actual people.
And if they ever get the opportunity to think for themselves, they get afrai
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You may be right. But I hope you're wrong, because that level of dependency is not something one recovers from easily when it's gone.
Extroverts seem to be having issues with this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Those of us in MN (and our Alaskan, Canadian friends northward, certainly) ...spending a week locked indoors isn't that big a deal. We do it pretty much every year, sometimes for longer than a week. Hell, for 3+ months we have to "suit up" to go outside comparable to putting hazmat suits and we're certainly familiar with conceptualizing outdoors as "actively trying to kill you".
I mean, many of us (here) are Scandinavian by background...hell, we barely ever touch, stand within 3m, or make eye contact as a matter of preference. What you call 'social distancing' for us that's uncomfortably close. :)
Watching the news media coverage of the rest of the world apparently losing their shit over being stuck inside for extended periods is ...frankly hard to parse. Is it REALLY something you're having trouble coping with? Or is this media histrionics overblowing something else?
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Yes, seems that "Minnesota nice" (and equally distant and aloof) probably is the social strategy that will take over the world...
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You know that introverts reproduce, right? We're just fine dealing with people normally (setting aside actual personality disorders, like severe Aspergers) we just don't have this goofy NEED to have everyone else's affirmation at all times.
Your hilariously compulsive effort to insist you're the norm (and more amusingly, this is how it "should" be) is practically a QED of my point about extroverts basically losing their shit these days.
Thanks!
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Nope, I'm firmly in the extrovert camp but have enough interests that a few weeks working from home won't be a problem. It's the people who rely on others for their self worth and affirmation that will be properly miserable.
(notice how I carefully avoided the word millennials)
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Like DJT?
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work is easier (Score:2)
I have been basically living at work for a year now myself, and its easier cause there's something always to get done, at home its much harder cause .... while there is an endless list, there are not "unlimited" resources, so yea I have a bunch of partially done projects now waiting on money or deliveries and im sitting here watching TV going bonkers
GoT Twice? (Score:2)
With the last season AND knowing how it ends? Isolation is worse than we thought if we end up resorting to that.
Submarines (Score:3)
Flying in space is probably the only job you absolutely cannot quit.
How about the crew on a nuclear submarine?
Living on the ISS isn't as unique as he thinks it is.
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Like anyone here needs tips on isolation... (Score:1)
We were born in it, molded by it... we didn't see upstairs until we were already men!
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Seriously, I've seen Scott Kelly speak on stage, that man doesn't know the crippling social isolation most /.ers do.
To quote Alex Honnold about something I'm sure many of us can relate to:
"I had to teach myself how to hug
when I was, like, 23 or something.
'Cause I was like,
"Everyone seems to hug,
that seems like something
I should get into,"
and then I started,
like, practicing.
Now I'm quite a good hugger.
Yes."
Binge Watching? (Score:2)
I wonder what the band width of the ISS ISP is?
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I have worked from home for 10+ years. (Score:2)
So be thankful if that sort of stuff is something that calms your nerves. You have an out. My out was travel to places where it's cooler and enjoy nature. I'm SOL.