Our current global predicament has left many stuck at home, wondering how to fill their quarantine-induced abundance of free time. Only a few weeks into this crisis, many are already verging on boredom, like a child realizing at the beginning of the summer that there is such a thing as too much free time. But it is not yet time to give in and admit to our parents that we have nothing to do; it is not time to start doing chores just yet.
Indeed, it is the “stuck at home” part that seems to make most people especially antsy. If this was pure free time, we could spend the days visiting museums and going to movie theatres and checking out books from libraries and hanging out in coffee shops and doing whatever else tickles our fancy outside of our respective houses. Luckily, some groups are working to make these places available from home. Google Arts & Culture is always a helpful resource for visual art. Today, they have free access to hundreds of thousands of pieces from museums around the world, as well as exclusive online galleries and resources. Additionally, for many of these, you can take a virtual tour that allows you to walk through the museum as if you were actually there. If you are interested, make sure to check in regularly to each museum’s individual website, as they look to continue to provide resources when they are not able to be open for visitors. From home, you can still explore the world of art; who knows what you will discover!
In addition to museum tours, you can also easily find virtual tours of famous buildings and landmarks (like Carnegie Hall in New York or Blarney Castle in Ireland or Taj Mahal), zoos and aquariums, Disney World and Disneyland, and more. If possible, make sure to invite others to enjoy and explore these places with you.
This would also be a great time to take advantage of free offers from streaming services. Some services, like Crackle, IMDBtv, and Pluto, are completely free, but most others offer 7-day or one-month free trials. These can provide entertainment for the time being, expanding your options for what to watch and allowing you to binge certain shows, but I think this could also be a good way to organize and prioritize your streaming accounts. For many of us, spring subscription cleaning is very needed. Sure, use this extra free time to watch what you have wanted to watch, but it would be wise to do some reassessing of your entertainment repertoire. Maybe you impulse-subscribed to Disney+ last week, you haven’t used your Hulu account ever since you lost interest in “This Is Us” but you still would like to have the option to watch “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” whenever you feel in that certain mood, you vowed to boycott Amazon months ago, yet you remain a Prime member, and now you are talking about adding HBO? Use this trying time to consider what you need and what you do not.
Especially today, the escapism that movies and tv shows offer can be incredibly valuable. However, binge-watching an adventure to another realm is often much less holistically engaging than getting lost in a novel or series. Many of us already own tens if not hundreds of books in our houses that we have not read. Go read a young adult series that you loved as a teenager, or one that you always wanted to read. These are often fun adventures that are easy to enter into, and they are made to get you hooked. Before you know it, you’ll be on book four and a week will have passed by. By that time, you will have most certainly fallen in love with a character or two, cried late into the night (over a book!), searched desperately for the sequel that you were sure you had somewhere, giggled to yourself in the presence of others, and believed that this magic is in you too.
And maybe, just maybe, you will have forgotten to check the news.