This 103-year-old Romanian philosopher has compiled a helpful to-do list to get you through quarantine

Romanian philosopher and civic activist Mihai Șora is keeping his online fanbase entertained throughout the Covid-19 pandemic with daily updates on the small pleasures of self-isolation.

He has tried to maintain his followers’ spirits high by posting about his hobbies: singing, gardening, performing with shadow puppets, practising the Morse code, and digitally observing the stars.

The 103-year-old has also published his own quarantine to-do list, including:

• Solving a Rubik’s Cube
• Painting his white fridge (inside and out)
• Reading Proust
• Starting to learn Swedish
• Improving his Japanese
• Writing in his “little Facebook notebook”
• Drawing a flock of sheep
• Clearing out his study
• Learning how to use the washing machine
• “Stoically” listening French composer Pierre Boulez
• Checking out planets discovered by NASA
• “training in general”, as well as reading and using his exercise bike.

Born in 1916, Șora moved to France to study philosophy in 1938, and later joined the anti-Nazi Resistance. He moved back to Romania in 1948 to look after his ill parents, and, unable to leave the country, he began working as an advisor in the Ministry of External Affairs. Sora soon became critical of the communist regime, which resulted in his marginalisation. After the 1989 Revolution, Șora became Minister of Education in Romania’s first post-communist government, and has since become a civic activist and participant in Romania’s recent anti-corruption and ecological protests, for which he was selected as one of Politico’s 28 Doers, Dreamers and Disruptors of 2019.

So far, Romania has recorded 433 coronavirus cases, resulting in five deaths.