Are we Willingly Writing the Story of our Isolation?

We lap up on everything that is new because it tingles us with its element of surprise and novelty. Advertisers and marketers depend heavily on catchphrases like ‘new and improved’ to draw instant attention. Thus, how handwoven sweaters with their intricate designs that moms took months to knit were happily replaced by machine woven pull overs and cardigans because they offered something new. Certainly, the latter enriched our wardrobe but they also replaced the mother’s touch, and her unique craftsmanship. Looking back, we might appreciate that labor of love more than ever.

Quite like the reminiscences of those baggy sweaters, our generation may still have vague memories of the days when neighbors and close friends could drop by our homes in the evening and throw us a little surprise. From the time the doorbell rung to them exchanging pleasantries at the threshold, a lot of mess got cleaned up from the living room. Those were the times when we did not call out a guest for coming unannounced and the visitors did not expect a spread-out table. People were happy to connect baggage free. There were no flying emoticons to reassure the emotional connect but they felt it deep in the heart.

Then a came a new wave that reconstructed the entire social fabric. It is the milieu we live in today. Now it is more convenient to call and chat with friends through cellphones and common social media groups. Entertaining guests at home is a big event and is reserved to special occasions. The better way is to go out and treat ourselves to a table of delicacies. It is a win-win situation in which we live, sustain, care, and pamper just ourselves. Hospitality has moved from the realm of personal relations to a professional industry where we are called guests and we pay for the services availed. These public places are full of people enjoying the same ambiance but individually, sitting by the sides of our tables, but neither sharing the same meal nor being part of the same conversation. Some see it as freedom from society, some deep down feel the pinch of isolation. Still in the all-perfect world of social media updates, we beam with a plastic smile and gloat over the exotic experience of dining at an upscale restaurant.

Now, there are thousands of social media groups based on hobbies, interest areas, etc. for us to socialize. I had the chance to join one such group. It was about parenting, and I must say that the members varied from over enthusiastic parents on a mission to correct the world to the ones searching for answers for their challenging situations. Problems were posted and the comments poured in. Honestly, I tried my hands on a few of them too, but soon realized the limitations of the group. I was trying to find an isolated answer to a situation where I neither knew the individuals I was talking about nor their collective life experiences. It was different from the times when we depended on relatives and friends for advices. They knew us more than how we perceived and portrayed ourselves. But now we need answers much like the google searches we do, based on our perception unlike what the truth might be.

According to a 2018 national survey by Cigna, loneliness has reached an all-time high among US adults. This finding becomes further significant because of the impact of loneliness on physical and mental well-being. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University states that the lack of social connection heightens health risk as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or having alcohol use disorder.

According to a global survey, around 33 percent of adults felt lonely worldwide, with Brazil (50 percent), Turkey (46 percent) and India (43) topping the list. . Loneliness is increasingly recognized as the silent epidemic, worldwide. The advent of better means of communication have given us the chances and avenues to connect and communicate with people more than ever, but certainly it cannot propel our will to open up. With more avenues to find our own tribe of likeminded people over the globe, we have become global citizens talking and discussing about events happening in the distant world. We are enamored by the thrill of finding our thoughts echoed by a stranger living thousands of miles away and we unintentionally distance ourselves with anything that is even a little disagreeable close by. This withdrawal from the real, and the unagreeable reduces our tolerance to coexist with differences and further distances us, giving rise to indifference, apathy, and eventual isolation. Loneliness is a shell that we build to protect ourselves from any external challenge only to get caged within our own mental confines.

It is not a mere coincidence that people living in developed countries are more and more choosing to live alone. Increasingly, youngsters are finding it challenging to live with a partner or marry someone because they think adjusting to the habits, likes, and dislikes of another person is too much a task at hand. Tita Gonzalez Avilés, lead author and psychologist at the Institute of Psychology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, states that, particularly in Western industrialized countries, singlehood is no longer unconventional and now considered more socially acceptable than in the past.” Thus, we are trying to shed off the social existence that human species were always associated with, from the time we could trace our evolution. Are we willingly writing the story of our isolation?