For the last few weeks, I have been alone in my apartment, wracked with fear that everyone I love will get sick and die, and missing human contact that doesn’t require a microphone. Indeed, I’m losing my mind so fully in semi-isolation that I’ve started befriending all my forks. There are certainly some benefits to social distance: I feel more connected to some of my friends and family who live far away, I have more time to read, and today I learned all the moves to the Justin Bieber “Sorry” dance. Still, I think I speak for most people when I say that this experience sucks (and is sure to get worse).
But when I say “most people,” I apparently do not mean Miley Cyrus, who seems to be using social distance as an opportunity to recharge. She told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, “This is the most at peace and fulfilled that I’ve been in the last few years.”
Per Us Weekly:
“I think I miss the safety of being able to be around my family,” she explained. “What do I miss of the outside world — of going to the studio or whatever, I don’t really miss that. Because, connecting with my fans every day is something that I really have been missing, probably since Hannah Montana.”…
…“Even you and I just having this chat feels less alone,” Cyrus admitted. “I just, I feel like I connected more with the outside world inside than I did on the outside.”
I don’t particularly blame Cyrus for feeling differently about social distance than I do. I imagine being a celebrity during this period is a little different altogether—no more hiding from paparazzi, no more PR events you don’t need to go to, no more getting mobbed by fans, which probably gets old. And there are some nice things, celebrity or not, about having the time to think about what kinds of human connection are important, and the things that really matter.