"I Don't Like to Talk to People"

Sometimes a statistic jumps out at you. The December 2018/January 2019 issue of the AARP Magazine , originally targeted to "old" people over 55, reported one of its studies found, "a third of Americans over age 45 are lonely." There are seven billion people in the world, I thought, how is this possible?

     Then, I remembered hearing a young person, who was ordering pizza online, say, "I don't like to talk to people." In many parts of the world, modern life makes it possible to avoid talking to people. Besides ordering food, you can make appointments, do your banking, get a boarding pass, and order just about anything, from clothes to concert tickets to a date, online. Ear buds enable a person to cut off all contact with the outside world.

     When using social media to "talk" to people, I've noticed communication often is brief. If you venture a longer comment to express an opinion, you can be misunderstood or shutdown with an insulting reaction. Back and forth discussions frequently fail to exist.

     It also has become fashionable to reject God and to glorify the kind of individualism that makes people intolerant. They stop engaging in discussions with others and accept their own ideas as Gospel. Once someone casts aside the God-given Ten Commandments or teachings of Jesus, there is no universal secular moral code for a person to follow. It's easy to claim, "unbelievers can be highly moral people," but, through the centuries, people have substituted very questionable moral codes: white Europeans are better than blacks, browns, yellows, reds, and even Jews and dirty whites; capitalists decided they were free to make their own money-making rules because it's "survival of the fittest"; Ayn Rand said tap dancing was the only acceptable form of dancing, because it relied on rational thought not emotion.

     It seems there are many paths to loneliness. And there are many destructive remedies: suicide; joining a gang; addictions to food, alcohol, gambling, video gaming, exercise, couch potato binging, sex, and work; deciding not to talk to family members or to keep up with friends who are too stupid or who reject your ideas or lifestyle or you reject theirs.

     Over the past holiday season, I've heard people say, "Thanksgiving is just another day, and I'll be able to catch up on work." But I've also seen photos of smiling friends and couples traveling to different parts in the world. I've received a CD of a friend singing in a choir, and I've seen Facebook items from a mom proud of her son's performance as a hockey goalie. My granddaughter and I baked gingerbread cookies and argued about whether to use raisins or tiny chocolate chips for reindeer eyes. She asked me to name seven of her friends. I couldn't, but now I can.