Loneliness

Rich Harwood come spoke to our class a couple of weeks ago. He said some very interesting things that I've been ruminating over.

We have built up barriers to other people and most of us are now very lonely.

I was just out walking/jogging near my apartment. While I was walking I noticed a couple of things. A) Even though it was an absolutely beautiful day, I was the only one out walking. B) In most of the cars that passed me, there was only one passenger. Other than the concern of mine about people wasting gas, I started to think about the barriers we have built. Nobody walks places in American suburbia. There's really not much to see. Cookie-cutter houses. Cars that smell bad. Safety issues. Cars will run you over because the drivers are not used to seeing people actually out walking.

I talked to a friend of mine last night. She grew up in a large European city. The first day she came to America (a mid-size Midwest town) she went for a walk wanting to explore her new home. In the process, she had two or three people ask her if she needed a ride and a lot of strange looks. People just don't walk in that town. They drive everywhere.

Not only do people drive around by themselves (adding to the isolation), the likelihood they would actually bump into someone and have a conversation with one of the fellow frantic drivers is very small. People are not longer people. They're a green Taurus. A red BMW. A smelly old Ford truck.

Maybe as more and more people populate this earth (last count was over six billion,) we will continue to find ways to isolate ourselves. But I don't know how good that is for our psyche.

Harwood spoke about Americans not trusting or knowing their neighbors. About watching television 14 hours a day. In our lives, it's normal not to actually talk with another person. But this lack of human interaction is not satisfying. They are unhappy. People don't trust other people. They don't trust media. They don't trust government. Maybe it's because we've grouped institutions of people together to make them larger than they actually are, and forgot that we're all just humans.