Humans are social animals and loneliness is one of the main problems of modern societies. As an old friend said “we live in crowds of lonely people”. I can never forget the contrast between “crowds” and “lonely”. If we are so many people, why is loneliness such a big problem? Is it a similar situation to being thirsty in the sea? We are surrounded by water but are other people too salty to quench our thirst?
In Episode 19 of Beautiful Ghosts Podcast (listen in your favourite podcast app, YouTube, or Website) we discussed loneliness. We tackled several questions. Why is loneliness so prevalent in modern societies? How does it feel to be lonely? Is loneliness the same as solitude? What can we do to overcome loneliness?
Why Is Loneliness Prevalent in Modern Societies?
Humans, as most primates, evolved to live in bands. Although humans evolved larger social structures, such as the tribe, the band or camp was the basic social structure. These were groups of families of about 50 people, mostly related by kin, living together in a camp.
They would collaborate for hunting and gathering food, share their meals, raise the young, and for defence against predators and enemies. There was a strong sense of belonging. In fact, the ability of humans to collaborate in large groups seems to have given us the advantage against Neanderthals.
This evolved our need to be connected to other people from birth, through childhood, and into adulthood. Notice that I said “…our need to be connected to other people…”, I didn’t say “…our need to be surrounded by other people…”. The difference between connecting to other people and being surrounded by other people is huge. Connection means sharing, helping, and supporting each other. Connecting is embracing vulnerability.
Let’s contrast life in a band to life in modern societies. Although we are surrounded by other people, we do not connect with most of them. Most people don’t even know who their neighbours are. If we are lucky, we are connected with our family and our friends, and we have positive exchanges with people in our community.
But many people don’t even have that. They live in dysfunctional families and do not experience an emotionally supportive environment. That lack of connection with other people is loneliness. It doesn’t matter how many people you are surrounded by. If you are not connecting, you will feel lonely.
What Is Loneliness?
Back in the mid-2000’s I was alone after migrating to New Zealand, with no friends, physically and emotionally distanced from my family. I felt lonely, but I knew it was temporary. I knew that I was going to meet a girl and start a family. That happened a few years later and I have never felt lonely ever since. In addition, I also started making friends in New Zealand. Some of those friendships didn’t last. But some, have lasted all this time.
Mariana pointed out that what I felt was temporary loneliness. Many people feel temporary loneliness at some point in their lives. The real problem is chronic loneliness which is when you feel that you don’t have meaningful connections around you, you are isolated and no one understands you. No one cares about you. With chronic loneliness you don’t see the world as a friendly place. You feel you have less relationships in quantity and quality. This is the type of loneliness that Mariana experienced.
Loneliness is not the same as solitude. Nico actually enjoys solitude, which is time he can spend by himself from time to time. In this case he is not lonely, he still has his connections with his family and friends, but enjoys connecting with himself. This connecting with yourself is of course very important. But if you are lonely, connecting with yourself will not help quench the loneliness. We need to be connected to other human beings.
Overcoming Loneliness
One of the problems in modern societies is that we put too much of our energy on achievement and competition, rather than on collaboration and connection. We pursue material wealth with much more zeal than trying to connect with other people. Why is that? From the moment that humans have been able to start accumulating material wealth, this has been rewarded by society and perhaps also by evolution. This means our genetic makeup may have started to reflect this new evolutionary pressure. But our need to connect is still real.
One day when Mariana didn’t want to talk to anyone she read a post saying that if you are lonely, it means you have been rejecting all the company offered to you. She realised there was arrogance in her loneliness. Perhaps she felt that everyone else was too salty? She decided to change and start connecting to other people. In fact, Beautiful Ghosts Podcast is part of that change.
The answer to loneliness is connecting with other people and making it our most important priority. It is true, nowadays we don’t need other people. We can live by ourselves and survive pretty well. But if we are feeling lonely it means our biology is still craving for human connection and no amount of material wealth trickery will change that.
Make an impact,
Pablo
PS: This post is dedicated to my old friend and chess player Carlos Bulcourf, whose phrase in Spanish “muchedumbre de solitarios” I’ve translated as “crowds of lonely people”.
Let me know what you think by email or on social media.
This post was originally published on Beautiful Ghosts.
Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay