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Loneliness is an epidemic of our time & compounded by Covid-19. The worst thing u can do to someone short of death is to give them solitary confinement & isolate them from any human contact. Our worst punishment is solitary confinement yet modern life creates more lonely people.
Before Covid-19, 60% of Americans, according to a study reported feeling lonely.
Loneliness is associated with higher risks of heart disease, lower immune system, and other ills worse than many vices.
But Americans were lonely. Btw, about 36 millions live alone or 28% of them.
Loneliness is associated with higher risks of heart disease, lower immune system, and other ills worse than many vices.
But Americans were lonely. Btw, about 36 millions live alone or 28% of them.
Statistics show that men tend to live more alone from 20s to 50s and then more women tend to live alone in elderly age, likely because men die earlier.
Living alone doesn't mean you are lonely, but you are likely to do many things alone, including eating, sleeping, entertaining.
Living alone doesn't mean you are lonely, but you are likely to do many things alone, including eating, sleeping, entertaining.
If we talk about loneliness, we should look into its historical context. Did you know that no one lived alone a century ago? Mostly because you wouldn't survive as u need your community/tribe to exist.
The loneliest people were those at the top. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/the-history-of-loneliness
The loneliest people were those at the top. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/the-history-of-loneliness
What gave rise to this extreme individualism, which is against the very thing that makes us happy, that is killing us slowly (prevalence is 60%), and is it in anyway related to the ever rising rate of obesity prevalence in the US that is now 42% of total population?
What is loneliness? UCLA has this test:
I'm unhappy doing so many things alone.
I have nobody to talk to.
I cannot tolerate being so alone.
I feel as if nobody really understands me.
I am no longer close to anyone.
There is no one I can turn to.
I feel isolated from others.
I'm unhappy doing so many things alone.
I have nobody to talk to.
I cannot tolerate being so alone.
I feel as if nobody really understands me.
I am no longer close to anyone.
There is no one I can turn to.
I feel isolated from others.
Do u say yes to any of the above? What about all? If all, then u must feel very lonely & it's not a nice feeling. Loneliness causes people to lose sleep, something we need to survive.
It's hard to define what it is but we have all felt it, hopefully transitory & not permanent.
It's hard to define what it is but we have all felt it, hopefully transitory & not permanent.
The opposite of loneliness:
A feeling of belonging, part of something, a sense of being at home, settled, a purpose, and most importantly, an important member of the human race, loved, wanted & existence matters, which I think we all fit
But feeling belonged not easy for most.
A feeling of belonging, part of something, a sense of being at home, settled, a purpose, and most importantly, an important member of the human race, loved, wanted & existence matters, which I think we all fit
But feeling belonged not easy for most.
There is nothing wrong w/ loneliness but in a permanent state of loneliness starves you the very thing that makes you human & wake up everyday excited to be alive.
Modernity has created a society full of lonely people, making choices that make them feel more alone.
Why & how?
Modernity has created a society full of lonely people, making choices that make them feel more alone.
Why & how?
I think the rise of living alone & higher sense of loneliness has to do with our economic system is organized.
We moved from roles to jobs, from communal/subsistence to atomization, specialization, mechanization & globalization.
Raises our income but divorces us from our labor
We moved from roles to jobs, from communal/subsistence to atomization, specialization, mechanization & globalization.
Raises our income but divorces us from our labor
This sort of organization frees us from our immediate tribe/village and expands us into the global village. With higher income, cheaper goods, we can be more individualistic & "do whatever we want".
So we are more "free" to carpe diem but only to find ourselves alone & lonely.
So we are more "free" to carpe diem but only to find ourselves alone & lonely.
People, like the commoditized things that we now produce to ever keeping expand output, are disposable.
There will be others, swipe left & right, if they don't fit our world view, we dispose.
Families start to fracture because people break free to be free, only to be alone.
There will be others, swipe left & right, if they don't fit our world view, we dispose.
Families start to fracture because people break free to be free, only to be alone.
Historian Alberti said:
“Many of the divisions and hierarchies that have developed since the eighteenth century—between self and world, individual and community, public and private—have been naturalized through the politics & philosophy of individualism.”
So what?
“Many of the divisions and hierarchies that have developed since the eighteenth century—between self and world, individual and community, public and private—have been naturalized through the politics & philosophy of individualism.”
So what?
I don't think we should go back to the "good old days" because let's be honest it wasn't that great either. You might have not felt lonely but oppressed in different ways. But perhaps the lesson here is that for us to progress, we must understand our need to belong to a community
As in we have something to learn from our ancestors or tribal society that we now find primitive and that there is something very sick about the way we currently organize ourselves to have so many people feeling lonely & die of disease of despair amongst all this material wealth.
