The other day during my drive home from work, I saw a woman crying in the car behind me. I had just happened to glance in my rear view mirror while stopped at a red light. At first I was a little alarmed and not quite sure what to do or how to react. I mean, there was a woman sobbing not more than twenty feet away from me. In the end, I treated this occurrence like I have been socialized to treat nose-picking or other crazy behavior I happen to inadvertently see. I ignored it completely.
But it's been a couple of weeks and I am still thinking about it. In fact, it popped into my head again about a week ago when I almost began to cry in my car on my drive home. It had been a particularly difficult week and I was struggling to keep myself together. It made me think of this woman, driving, trying to hold herself together and not succeeding. She was me. She was everyone.
I have been concerned for a while now about the growing disconnection that I think many of us are experiencing. Yes, we have many, many ways to communicate with each other ie: mobile phones, texting, email, facebook, twitter, online chat etc. Yes, we can get a hold of practically anyone at anytime. We can tell the whole world what we are feeling and why we are feeling it. But it had better be under 160 characters. Because our brains are no longer programed to understand anything longer than that.
Do we even know how to just talk on the phone anymore? Or, wait for it, get together with someone and talk to that someone in person? And when you are, or you see or hear a person in distress, what do we do? Just ignore it. Act like it never happened. Or talk about it online or via email or text cause then we are removed from the situation. We are safe from really feeling anything.
Now I freely admit, that I do use all of these communication devices. And they certainly serve a purpose. But I still talk on the phone with my family and my best friends. I still attempt to get together with people I care about just to hang out, just to spend time with real humans. I am lucky to have such interesting people in my life.
I do not want to become the person texting another person sitting in the same room as me. I do not want to become the person that has no idea that his roommate is suffering distress because he chosen to ignore the signs, because he chooses not to ask. I try to be present. I try to pay attention. I certainly think a lot. And I try to be a good listener.
Whether we live alone, with friends or family, or with significant others, I think many of us are suffering from this feeling of disconnection. Our lives are full (maybe too full). There is stress. We are in a hurry. We push our thoughts into the far recesses of our minds. We simplify everything and try to fit our thoughts into 160 characters. It's exhausting. It's overwhelming. We end up crying in the car on the way home from work. And we don't know why.
In an attempt to counteract my own feelings of disconnection, I began hosting a Sunday Supper Club. Basically, it's just a venue for people to cook, eat and talk to one another. Just a casual time for friends to hang out, maybe meet some new people. Time to actually talk with one another. It has been a good time thus far. Even when there have only been a few it's been lovely. Everyone eats. Might as well enjoy a meal with others.
No one wants to end up crying in the car while chomping on fast food fries and texting a message that will surely be misunderstood. We all need to slow down. Take some time. Experience the world around us and communicate in full sentences.
No comments:
Post a Comment