The doors are closing | 2

 People in isolation

 There are two types of prison isolation. A solitary person develops hypersensitivity, can lead to impaired cognitive functions, cause aggression, provoke depression, form a persistent feeling of hopelessness, etc. Joint confinement makes a person suspicious, enhances emotional control.

 We found ourselves in self-isolation for the most part with our relatives and friends. On the one hand, the number of couples wanting to get married has increased: living together 24/7 has brought people closer and strengthened their feelings. But this, on the contrary, pushed someone to divorce and even provoked a surge in domestic violence. The constant presence of the Other (as if we missed him inside our own head!) Often becomes unbearable.

 Among other things, Dostoevsky in hard labor was suffering from the "forced cohabitation" - not even the unspoken laws and rules of the prison community, but simply the constant presence of other people.

 Andrey Sinyavsky writes about the same:

 “… The opportunity to be alone is scarce, and it is very difficult to be in public all the time”;

 “I have never so longed for complete silence. We have to disconnect (local term) and walk a little in abstract (also a term) ”;

 “I also notice how difficult it is for me to live with people, even the nicest people, but who bring them to white heat with some alien habit, smell, etc. I just want to close my eyes and not see, not feel”.

 Reason, full of being-for-itself, at first resolutely denies and rejects the Other. It limits our initially infinite self-consciousness: the world where freedom was absolute and the being did not look at itself, no longer exists. A new dimension of reality appears - being-for-the-other, and with it other ideas about one's own "I".

 The other turns out to be a necessary condition for the recognition of your existence. But nevertheless, it turns out that isolation deprives us of two freedoms at once: we cannot choose where to go and get rid of whoever is near.

 Psyche in isolation

 However, we very quickly get used to the new environment. It is difficult to focus on the fact that something extraordinary is happening in the world when you just sit in your house and have already thoroughly studied all its corners.

 The brain tries to adapt to any, even the most extraordinary, circumstances. But not without a fight. So, both Dostoevsky and Sinyavsky note increased irritability, due to which a person loses his temper in imprisonment for any trifling reason, and petty adherence to principles.

 Dostoevsky calls the latter "instinctive longing for oneself." For example, a person again and again ends up in a punishment cell for the unfolded tops of his boots, but demonstratively continues to violate this paragraph of the charter. Another example is convicts' passion for money (quite similar to rampant internet shopping in self-isolation): “The whole meaning of the word 'prisoner' means a person without will; while spending money, he acts of his own accord. "

 Outbursts of emotion, hard everyday cheap work, money for which is spent on drink in one evening, violation of self-isolation in a bush suit, the decision to invite a mistress home when you are a British epidemiologist and insist on a lockdown, or the trick of my neighbors with throwing each other off the balcony ... Deprived of the right to determine his own destiny, a person tries to at least somehow approve it.

 Life goes on, and we sit. And it seems to be known for what, but the lack of freedom casts doubt on the very fact of our existence.

 Andrey Sinyavsky writes to his wife:

 “You don’t always have time to answer all my questions, and then they stale and are forgotten. Because of this, I sometimes have a feeling of some kind of confusion, and I myself begin to seem like a ghost that exists more in my own consciousness and one empty day suddenly realizes that it is not there. " Awareness of lack of freedom occurs in flashes. The fact of one's own conclusion begins to be forgotten in a sense. This seems to be your natural way of being:

 “I am mired in prison like in a swamp. I do not know what to do. I see prisons everywhere. I wanted to overcome the prison with willpower, but I couldn't. Now it seems to me that my desire to defeat prison is already a prison in itself! " (A. Rubanov).

 Conclusion changes people. For 19 years in prison, traits have been transformed, which are ranked among the so-called big five personality traits.

 Even short-term isolation affects a person - however, it is not yet known how. One study found that inmates' self-control declined over three months, with reduced alertness and increased willingness to take risks. The authors of another work note that people have become more open and at the same time disciplined.

 However, an important caveat should be made: the study was conducted in Sweden, and the prisons there are exemplary.

 Unfreedom steals the soul - but is it only? The main thing is not to let it out of your hands by accident, without noticing the loss.