Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
Rocky on the Ropes
No pandemic would send Rocky Balboa or the folks on the World War II home front into a black hole of loneliness and depression. Follow their advice:
Get physically fit. Activate you own version of Rocky's raw egg concoction and his run up Philadelphia's Art Museum steps.
Grow your wealth. During World War II, Captain America advised citizens to fight for freedom by investing $37.50 in a war bond that would yield $50 in ten years. Today, bonds are sold online at treasurydirect.gov.
Discover farming. Pick apples, berries and watermelons at local farms, buy fresh corn at stands along country roads, plant tomatoes in your own Victory Garden and grow flowers to attract the honeybees that pollinate crops.
Enjoy home entertainment. Once listeners gathered around the radio to hear a closet full of items tumble out on "Fibber McGee and Molly" or they read comic books in lighted closets during blackouts. Choose from a much wider variety of ways to enjoy home entertainment today.
Hone your arguments. While sheltering in place, take time to scroll through social media, listen to talking heads, read up on the issues and then express your opinions in "Letters to the Editor" and elsewhere.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
"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.
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.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Fight, Flight, or Something Else
We all have enemies. The alarm clock that tells us it's time to get up, when we'd prefer to sleep in. The bully who terrorizes us on social media. Our usual reaction is fight or flight. And we know the results. Violence leads to more violence and destruction, a shattered alarm clock. Flight can result in the kind of isolation from all people and depression that Sebastian Junger describes veterans suffer, when they return home after their tribal bonding with buddies in a war zone.
When unusual circumstances make fight and flight impossible in a prison situation, we get a glimpse of a third way to deal with enemies. If it helps avoid violence and loneliness, it could be worth a try.
While reading Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower, I came across the report of an interrogation between Ali Soufan, a Muslim FBI agent, and Abu Jandal, who served as an Osama bin Laden bodyguard. After listening to Abu Jandal describe himself as a revolutionary trying to rid the world of the evil that came mainly from the United States, Soufan realized Abu Jandal had a very limited knowledge of the United States. He gave him a history of the United States in Arabic. Since Soufan had learned Abu Jandal was a diabetic, he also brought him sugarless wafers with his coffee.
The sugarless-wafers-and-coffee-gesture reminded me that I had read Nelson Mandela had done something similar during the 27 years he was locked up in a South African prison. When one of his guards came in to run the projector on a movie night, Mandela heard him complaining that the tea he was carrying was cold. On the next movie night, Mandela was able to provide the guard with a cup of hot tea and cookies. Mandela would later invite the guard to his inauguration as President of South Africa.
While in prison, Mandela learned the Afrikaans language of the Dutch descendants who imposed the apartheid restrictions on blacks in South Africa. He also studied the Afrikaner history and philosophy.
Being a Muslim himself, Soufan could engage Abu Jandal in a discussion of the Quran 's instructions for the honorable conduct of warfare. "Are not women and children to be protected?" he asked. Soufan went on to point out al-Qaeda even killed Muslims in the attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa and in New York. Abu Jandal insisted, "The Sheikh is not that crazy. It was the Israelis." When he could no longer deny what the overwhelming evidence showed to be true, Abu Jandal provided information about the structure of al-Qaeda, locations of hideouts, and escape plans.
My granddaughter, who will be a high school senior this fall, is on the "Senior Citizens" committee created to help freshmen feel at home in the new surroundings that house 2,200 students seven hours a day. Since her mother had been on a similar high school committee, she passed on some advice about what to tell freshmen. I told them, if they see me in the hall, don't be afraid to come over and tell me how things are going or to ask for advice. Introduce me to your friends. I'm not a big bad senior who knows it all. A few years ago I was a freshman and next year I'll be a freshman again in college. Fight, flight, or understand.
When unusual circumstances make fight and flight impossible in a prison situation, we get a glimpse of a third way to deal with enemies. If it helps avoid violence and loneliness, it could be worth a try.
While reading Lawrence Wright's book, The Looming Tower, I came across the report of an interrogation between Ali Soufan, a Muslim FBI agent, and Abu Jandal, who served as an Osama bin Laden bodyguard. After listening to Abu Jandal describe himself as a revolutionary trying to rid the world of the evil that came mainly from the United States, Soufan realized Abu Jandal had a very limited knowledge of the United States. He gave him a history of the United States in Arabic. Since Soufan had learned Abu Jandal was a diabetic, he also brought him sugarless wafers with his coffee.
The sugarless-wafers-and-coffee-gesture reminded me that I had read Nelson Mandela had done something similar during the 27 years he was locked up in a South African prison. When one of his guards came in to run the projector on a movie night, Mandela heard him complaining that the tea he was carrying was cold. On the next movie night, Mandela was able to provide the guard with a cup of hot tea and cookies. Mandela would later invite the guard to his inauguration as President of South Africa.
While in prison, Mandela learned the Afrikaans language of the Dutch descendants who imposed the apartheid restrictions on blacks in South Africa. He also studied the Afrikaner history and philosophy.
Being a Muslim himself, Soufan could engage Abu Jandal in a discussion of the Quran 's instructions for the honorable conduct of warfare. "Are not women and children to be protected?" he asked. Soufan went on to point out al-Qaeda even killed Muslims in the attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa and in New York. Abu Jandal insisted, "The Sheikh is not that crazy. It was the Israelis." When he could no longer deny what the overwhelming evidence showed to be true, Abu Jandal provided information about the structure of al-Qaeda, locations of hideouts, and escape plans.
My granddaughter, who will be a high school senior this fall, is on the "Senior Citizens" committee created to help freshmen feel at home in the new surroundings that house 2,200 students seven hours a day. Since her mother had been on a similar high school committee, she passed on some advice about what to tell freshmen. I told them, if they see me in the hall, don't be afraid to come over and tell me how things are going or to ask for advice. Introduce me to your friends. I'm not a big bad senior who knows it all. A few years ago I was a freshman and next year I'll be a freshman again in college. Fight, flight, or understand.
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