Learning learning learning was the key for me. I had a drop-off in work that has (for now at least) recovered to some extent, so had some extra time to play with and have been using that to not only catch up with some personal 3D work, but also to start a new hobby, which in my case was learning orchestral arrangement pretty much from scratch. I still had (remote) contact with all my friends and family, so didn't feel that 'socially challenged', although I must confess to being somewhat reclusive and night-owlish even when I'm not in a lockdown, so not much has practically changed there.
I don't watch the news at all, other than what I can't avoid seeing on social media streams, and a once a week visit to the BBC to see what the latest guidelines / scientific advice is. I suspect I am a lot happier and less worried by excluding news and media on a fairly wholesale basis 🙂
The cafe has been very helpful too - lots of covid threads have come and gone which have all helped pass the time and see how our 3D friends have been getting along, and of course if I can help anyone a bit more, then that helps (me at least) feel better about valuable use of downtime etc etc...
Like you, I also tend towards depression and anxiety if too many things start going wrong at once, but have so far managed to stay on the right side of that particular black hole, although I think anyone freelance in our industry has some level of background anxiety going on, crisis or not - sort of the nature of the game we are in, but +20% because we're all in a lockdown ! But I'll still happily take that over job security and having to go into some horrible office all day every day to do something I am uninterested in ! 🙂
So, for me, the recipe for 'Covid contentment' is:
Learn new sh**
Push a lot of polys around, fully absorbing the zen-like calm that doing so imparts
Minimise news
Maximise music
Keep talking to friends
Try and help where you can.
Drink a lot of tea / spend a lot of time with cat.
Stay safe peoples...
CBR