We are absorbing news about a disease almost none of us had even heard of until a couple of months ago.

We are dealing with restrictions that most of us could not have imagined being imposed in this country.

Our daily lives are being tossed into turmoil in a way that that few of us have ever experienced.

For just about all of us, the way we're living right now feels disconcertingly, even frighteningly, new.

There's that popular saying about those who can't learn from history being doomed to repeat it.

Yet if something seems unprecedented, what are we to learn? How are we to learn?

Perhaps we're making history, and mistakes, for those in the future to learn from.

But confronting tough times is hardly new to the human experience. Challenges and change are part of life. They always have been.

Everyone has experienced challenges and change. They have helped make each of us who we are. Which means we can learn from each other.

Each week, I'll speak with fellow community members who have accrued life experiences that may help us sketch a few lines on our own mud map, as we trudge through what feels like uncharted territory.

The destination may be unclear, but these people have some ideas on how to proceed with the journey through life, and how to carry on being human.

These are people who worked out how to get going when the going got tough.

ALF Carpenter knows that life is more of a marathon than a sprint.

After all, on April 22, Mr Carpenter will be celebrating his 103^rd birthday.

While he can't hold a party, Alf Carpenter will still be celebrating.

"I've got a six-pack of Tooheys Old in the fridge, and I can assure you some of that will be consumed," he said.

Birthday or not, Mr Carpenter is unconcerned about self-isolation.

"It's not affecting me very much at all, because I've been living on my own for the last 10 years," he said.

Alf Carpenter possesses a calm mind. He attributes that to having studied Raja Yoga meditation in India in the late 1960s. But the calmness also comes from having lived a long and adventure-filled life, when it could have easily come to an end decades earlier.

During the Second World War, Alf Carpenter had a number of close shaves.

As a soldier in the 2/4^th Australian Infantry Battalion, Alf Carpenter was hit by shrapnel while being mortared by German forces in Crete in 1941.

"I didn't duck quick enough and I got a smack on the side of the head," he recalled. "In later years that affected the optical nerve and I finished up losing the sight of the right eye."

A corneal transplant restored some of that sight. He is still driving a car.

A few years later in the war, Alf Carpenter was fighting for survival during a battle off New Guinea. He was in a landing craft, which was hit by the Japanese, throwing Mr Carpenter into the water, "so that was a nice soft landing for me".

"I stayed there until I was picked up the next day by a rescue boat," he said.

"That didn't worry me. I can float on salt water."

During that long night bobbing about in tropical waters, Alf Carpenter's future was determined.

"There was another chap out there with me, a Lieutenant Lewis, and he was in charge of one of the barges. We had a bit of a chat."

In his civilian life, Ted Lewis worked in a store at Wallsend. Alf Carpenter knew little about Newcastle; he had worked in a hardware business in Wagga Wagga. But they agreed if they escaped from the war with their lives, they'd go into business together. And they did, running a general store at Warners Bay.

Alf Carpenter's life has remained in the water in many respects. He was a surf life saver at Merewether for years. Until public pools were closed recently, Mr Carpenter was an official race starter, and occasional swimmer, for a club at Lambton Pool, and he was looking forward to doing some laps during winter with the Merewether Mackerels at the ocean baths.

He may have to stay out of the water, but that doesn't isolate Alf Carpenter from what he loves most about those clubs. The sense of community. Now the community comes to him.

Neighbours have been putting notes in his letterbox offering help. He read out part of one letter, where a young couple offered to deliver anything he needed.

"So it's bringing out the best in people," he said.

Although he doesn't understand the point of toilet paper hoarding: "I've got a bidet, so I don't have to use toilet paper, so if you're short of a couple of rolls of toilet paper, I've got a couple that have been given to me, and I can get rid of them!"

Asked what advice he would give about getting through this time, Alf Carpenter replied, "All I can say is the same as that letter indicates.

"Do what you can for your fellow beings and trust you can look after people, and try and look after yourself."

During the week, I spoke with another centenarian, Neville Chant. The 101-year-old was doing some housework.

"I've just hung the washing out," he said.

Neville Chant's grandfather then his father ran a large mixed business in Maitland for many years, including during the Great Depression. Even in the most trying of times, Mr Chant said, there was an orderly air in that store.

"There was no such thing as panic buying," he said.

"People only bought what was needed. Number one, they didn't have the money to buy in quantity!"

Generally, what we needed to look for, Mr Chant reckoned, was a source of contentment, not for something to complain about.

"I try to enjoy life as much as I can," Mr Chant said. "It's so good to be alive and enjoy things."

For Mr Chant, the spirit of enjoyment, and perhaps a clue to a long life, comes from a bottle.

"I keep myself with a bit of Scotch medicine, and it seems to work," Mr Chant said. "It's good medicine!"