Mindfulness is useless in a pandemic

Is living in the present overrated? "Many moments of happiness are about anticipation, the joy of the imagined future — and distracting ourselves from the tedious, exhausting or difficult present. Yet even our small consumer choices or our musings about what to do this weekend now bring us back to the big, overpowering reality of the pandemic. We cannot escape it. Our daydreams have come crashing back to earth: 2020 is the year that the future was cancelled." Catherine Nixey reflects for The Economist's 1843 magazine.