November 5, 2013
Loneliness Is A Scream
I don't mean intentionally not being with others--taking time away from the hustle and bustle for yourself--but rather being left alone.
Think of the horrors of POWs kept in isolation, prisoners put in solitary, or just everyday kids icing out other children in school, adults marginalizing colleagues at work, and family members abandoning spouses and children at home.
Elizabeth Bernstein makes the distinction between being alone (a potential voluntary state) and loneliness (when you feel that you are forced into an isolated state) in the Wall Street Journal today.
It's an awesome article that explains so much about loneliness:
- We all experience loneliness from "homesickness, bullying, empty-nesting, bereavement, and unrequited love."
- Loneliness can occur when you are without anybody ("isolation") or with the wrong somebody ("dissatisfaction").
- It's a survivalist function and evolutionary to feel scared when your alone, because when you are "too close to the perimeter of the group, [then you become] at risk of becoming prey."
- Loneliness is also associated with memories or fears from childhood--when we were young and vulnerable--that someone wasn't there or going to be there to take care of us.
- Too much loneliness is a "strong predictor of early death"--greater than alcoholism, 15 cigarettes a day, or obesity.
- Loneliness is on the rise, with "some 40% of Americans report being lonely, up from 20% in the 1980's" and this is correlated with more people living alone, now 27% in 2012 versus 17% in 1970.
- Loneliness can be placated by "reminding yourself you're not a [helpless] child anymore," building emotional health and personal self-sufficiency, doing things you enjoy when alone, and reaching out to connect with others.
She jokes at the end of her article that when we aren't feeling lonely, we are annoyed that people just don't leave us alone.
This is a very real concern as well, especially with a multitude of family needs (significant others, young children, elderly parents), 24x7 work environments, and the reality of pervasive online communications and even invasive social media.
Not exclusive to introverts, too much people can make us feel put upon, crowded, and even worn out--and hence many people may even run from excessive social activity and crowds.
Yet without a healthy dose of others, people can literally go crazy from the quiet, void, boredom, as well as from the real or perceived feelings that they are in some way unworthy of love or affiliation.
So even though some people can be annoying, users, or try to take advantage of us, no man is an island, and growth, learning and personal serenity is through degrees of love and connection, for each according to their needs. ;-)
(Source Photo: here)
August 22, 2009
Technology, A Comfort to the Masses
Typically, as technologists, we like to point out the great things that technology is doing for us—making us more productive, facilitating more convenience, allowing us to perform feats that humans alone could not do, and enabling us to connect with others almost without regard to space and time. And truly, we are fortunate to live in a time in history with all these new unbelievable capabilities—our ancestors would be jealous in so many ways.
Yet, there is a flip side to technology—what some refer to as the 24x7 society—“always on”—that we are creating, in which life is a virtual non-stop deluge of emails, voicemails, videoconferencing, messaging, Friending, Linking-in, blogging, tweeting, YouTubing, and more.
We are becoming a society of people living in a Matrix-type virtual world, where we go around addicted to the online cyber world and yet in so many ways are unconscious to the real-world relationships that are suffering in neglect and silence.
A fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal, 22-23 August 2009 entitled, Not So Fast, by John Freeman states that “we need to protect the finite well of our attention if we care about our relationships.”
Certainly, online communications and connections are valuable, and in many ways are meaningful to us. They can create wonderful opportunities to bond with those near and far, including those who would be normally beyond our reach geographically and temporally. For me it’s been great reconnecting with old friends from schools, jobs, and communities. And yes, who would think that Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger would be but a FaceBook message away for me?
Yet while all the online interaction is fulfilling for us in so many ways—filling voids of all sorts in our lives—in reality the connections we make in the virtual world are but a tiny fraction of the real world human-to-human relationships we have in terms of their significance and impact.
The Journal article puts it this way: “This is not a sustainable way to live. This lifestyle of being constantly on causes emotional and physical burnout, workplace meltdowns, and unhappiness. How many of our most joyful memories have been created in front of a screen?”
One of the biggest fears that people have is not their own mortality, but that of being left alone in the corporeal world—for each of us, while a world unto ourselves, are small in the vastness of all that is around us. Perhaps to feel less alone, people amass and encircle themselves with great amounts of familiar, comforting, and loving people and things. And while people have these, they are connected, grounded, loved, and they are comforted that they are not alone.
But the harsh reality is that no matter how much we have in our lives, people are beings onto themselves, and over time, unfortunately and extremely painfully, all worldly things are ultimately lost.
The Journal states: “We may rely heavily on the Internet , but we cannot touch it, taste it, or experience the indescribable feeling of togetherness that one gleans from face-to-face interaction.”
Connections are great. Virtual relationships can be satisfying and genuine. All the technology communication mechanisms are fast, efficient, and powerful in their ability to reach people anytime and anywhere. Yet, we must balance all these with the people we care about the most. We cannot sacrifice our deepest and most intimate relationships by sitting in front of a computer screen morning, noon, and night and walking around with the BlackBerry taking phone calls and emails at our kids' school play, on their graduation day, and during their wedding recital. We are missing the boat on what is really important. We have forgotten how to balance. We have gone to extremes. We are hurting the ones we truly love the most.
“We need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from efficiency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments, but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships.”
Finally, with all the technology, we are in a sense becoming less human and more mechanical—like the Borg, in Star Trek—with BlackBerrys and Netbooks as our implants. Let’s find some time to pull the plug on these technologies and rediscover the real from the virtual.
Technology, A Comfort to the Masses