Lonely Planet - By Atul Singh

 Lonely Planet 

There is a documentary called “Lonely Planet”, that I have enjoyed watching on an off. It is about unique places to visit around the globe, which are many. For a docu-series that extols the diversity of and uniqueness life’s richness on Planet Earth, I found the title a bit of a misnomer. That is, unless you see it in context of the known Universe and how lifeless it is. Then you appreciate how indeed we are a Lonely Planet in all of the heavens. 

American society is a bit like that I think. Relatively speaking, it is brimming with material riches which an individual has access to, but at the human level the individual is rather lonely. The society seems to systematically isolate individuals from the fabric of the “whole” and render them alone. While many of us are blessed to have found ways around it, I speak of the structure of the social contract we seem to have created amongst ourselves. The work culture, the privacy each household cultivates and breeds, the “independent individual” the society(especially movies) parades as successful, the drive for material riches at the cost of cultivating family and social bonds, for which there is less and less time; and many more norms, spoken and unspoken, drive a behavior that is rewarding for material success but punishing for human psyche. 

This is borne out by certain empirical facts that are hard to ignore. United States has about one in five people on anti-depressants, about fifty percent marriages ending in divorce, about 38 million single person led households, over 1.5 million people in nursing homes, being visited once a week if they are lucky, 2.19 million people in prison(25 percent of world’s prison population they say), 20 percent people fighting mental disorders, with 50 percent likely to face one in their lifetime, 693 mass shootings in 2021 and over half a million homeless people.

If you reflect on this kind of data in totality, even cursorily, it is easy to see that the individual is under extreme pressure and the vulnerable get caught in a downward draft very quickly. There is little or no social fabric that can act as a bulwark against the forces of isolation and resulting loneliness. On the contrary, it would almost seem that the social construct methodically seeks out and destroys the vulnerable, psychologically, on an ongoing basis. 

One could write a whole book about the reasons for sure, even above an beyond the few I mentioned before. But let me expand on a few cursory observations. The schooling system is not cohort based. Instead every year, most of the classmates change for every child. This lends to not being able to build long term childhood school friendships that in other societies become a valuable and meaningful part of childhood growth. 

So the child relies on activity based friendships, which again change based on changing activities that the child indulges in, from music to arts to sports to whatever else. Again, it is extremely hard to develop a consistent cohort of children to cultivate those friendships. Lastly, thankfully the neighborhood friendships come into play. For those fortunate enough to build those, with like minded neighborhood friends, life gets easier. Else like for many of the rest, who are either too occupied in activities, going from one to another or do not have similar age or like minded neighbors, are out of luck in this crucial aspect of good psychological health. 

With regards to adults, by the time you acquire the House, two cars, a couple of kids, the work hours and pressure there-off, little or no help available for household chores; running around for children’s activities all conspire to leave little or no time for actual socialization and for building those social bonds with family and friends that act as a shield protecting us during the times we get vulnerable due to financial, work, relationship pressures. The economic pace of the society is such that no one is immune from vectors that can line up against you any moment. 

Clearly we can take cognizance of these winds that swirl around us but can’t change much overnight. But we can step forward in two crucial ways, right away, today.

1. Enhancing the social aspect of our lives. Giving it it’s fair due. Reaching out to our own friends for our support and to the ones we know are vulnerable for providing support.
2. Finding and cultivating channels of self expression. It could be any medium you like including art, music and the rest. But one of the most powerful and easily available ones is the act of writing, for oneself, for others. It gets our creative juices flowing, becomes a bridge to others and has its own cathartic affect on our psyche that few other activities could ever match. So go ahead, pick up your Quill and give it a go… You will be better off for it. You might even change someone’s life, maybe yours, one silly word at a time.