But the fighter still remains"
~The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel
Human beings are social animals and they normally do well in groups. However there has been in recent times a drastic drift away from this. Most people in my age group (20-30) complain of anxiety and other such disorders. Could loneliness be to blame for this? I believe so.
You can have 5000 friends and still be lonely. Even though on the surface you have a smile on your face, are you really happy?
A cliche, I know but hear me out. I believe loneliness is a part of the core human psyche and that each individual is inherently lonely and that is what pushes them to do things. As a child, I was initially playing outside with friends, but once the computer came into our lives permanently, it went online. Nobody stepped out anymore. Plastic mice and plastic keys became our friends and we started to develop other technological marvels along those lines. Today a person like Elon Musk is sending satellites to space and hoping to colonize Mars. This is amazing and definitely possible, given that I have always maintained that mankind can do anything!
However, where does the loneliness go? In the middle of the COVID pandemic, where do humans turn to for companionship and camaraderie? Online.
So there we are. A bunch of lonesome heroes, fighting to not be lonely. We wake up, have coffee and work from home. And as in the olden days, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. Except if I may, I would like to modify that thus: the sick get sicker because they end up lonelier.
This was not the case when my father was a child. The previous generation met physically and played contact sports and therefore were not as liable to fall prey to mental aliments. They were also able to keep their inherent loneliness at bay, in some cases make friends with it.
However now there is difficulty in maintaining even the simplest of relationships. Bit by bit people are wrapping themeleves up into cocoons and no butterflies are emerging. We, the next generation believe that we do not deserve love, or respect. Therefore when we find it, we fail to recognise it. This only makes matters worse.
It seems to me that we aren't heading for Asimov's future. We are living in Orwell's dystopia. A dystopia in which our privacy is thrown to the wolves and we fear those in power.
Yes we are not alone, but we have never been lonelier.
The Bilge Master
I was actually loneliest playing contact sports and in groups. Interesting how individuals perceive and deal with loneliness differently and how we each have our so-called escape routes. Perhaps we are lonely because we are so obsessed with "colonizing" something? I would rather focus on making this beautiful earth a more equitable place and finding fellowship among unexpected earthlings from whom we feel estranged now, the ones we don't usually think fit to socialize with. Perhaps I am rambling?
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