Loss of community is a topic I've considered quite a bit in the last decade. I know some of it is probably a perception of how life used to be, but I think some of it is real.
When I was growing up as a kid, all the neighborhood kids were out on the street playing almost daily. Community gatherings were fairly common. Today, I still see kids out playing, mine included, but not that many. It's all playdates now - friggin scheduled.
As an adult, I would say we have three couples we see regularly and that I consider close friends. I can't tell you how many people we've had over for dinner but it goes nowhere. (I love cooking and having a group around a table btw) I used to think it must be our personality, but they seem to always accept our invites but never invite themselves. Finally someone told me once that they would love to have people over but they don't want to go through the effort to cook or straighten up a bit. It is work to entertain a group, but to have a house full of talk and children is worth it to me.
This recent update on a study out of Duke University that has been running since 1972 finds "Nearly a quarter of people surveyed said they had "zero" close friends with whom to discuss personal matters. More than 50 percent named two or fewer confidants, most often immediate family members, the researchers said." The study finds that we are becoming even more isolated than we were in the last update in 1985. Researchers also are astounded at the rate of change, since sociological changes of this kind usually take much longer to show change.
Why don't we work at our relationships anymore? Are we content being isolated and interacting only virtually?
10 comments:
Excellent point. Speaking from very, very recent experience, you MUST get out there- you MUST put yourself in a place where people can see you give a shit bout life- and you will also meet fellow shitgivers ( hmmm...perhaps a better term is in order)
That being said, I have met some great people on-line, especially during a not-long-ago period when I wasn't in shape-physical or emotional- to get out THERE, and the support and encouragement from these virtual friends has been very valuable to me in my effort to quit fucking up.
i think so much of it has to do with technology. TV, rentable movies, the internet....
gone, for the most part, are the days of card parties, socials and other sorts of "regular" gatherings that people (read: neighbors, etc) would have to be social.
now, we just type.
Hah! I just noticed this pearl of wisdom in the article Susanne linked:
"He suggested flexible work schedules would allow Americans to tend both personal and professional lives."
This is said by a Harvard Professor- he must be a super-genius to have figured that out. I thought the key to happiness was a 60-hour work week with no benefits.
What he's saying is that we should all have jobs like his.
How?
I agree. Isolation is almost at epidemic proportions.
I am lucky I have four sisters three of whom still talk to me. Two adult daughters and we talk a lot and one or two very good friends one of them my husband... so I am okay, but too many live behind closed doors looking out.
A few years back when our youngest was ill and had and has been for four years... she had to spend much of the days in bed and she would ring me from about 200kms away and say what made her sad was the sound of people outside playing or walking past talking.
Illness which is chronic is one of the major causes of isolation, and the lonliness is shocking.
When you don't have the energy to sit up and talk, people begin to stay away, and if you have nothing in the way of conversation to offer back because of weakness etc and I mean that weak you cannot concentrate, people mostly lose interest.
It used to break my heart when I would go down to see her to talk and clean up and sort out her medical stuff but then finally I had to return home, I would pull that front door shut knowing she was going to see no one till her sister came in a couple of days...no one at all. She had to live there because she couldn't get treatment in the country.
Things a lot better now but it still makes me sad to remember her little face looking back at me. Such isolation is a cruelty in itself along with the illness which makes it possible.
Yes. I am happy not working on relationships and interacting virtually, exclusively. I'm running electricity out to the bunker/storm shelter right now and when complete - I'll crawl right in and be a happy little gollum-ish thing... what has it gots in its pocketses my precioussssssssssss
MC- My mom lived like that before she got sick, but she moved back home before she died -in the end she didn't want to be alone. At least she had that option- it is heartbreaking to think about those who don't.
Amy- speak of the Devil...
I believe that a life is made up of the relationships formed within it. Our hearts are shaped by those who touch them.
I mourn this loss of community. I mourn the insane privacy we've all acquired. I remember a time when I knew my neighborhood so well I could tell you the name of every dog on the block, and for a few blocks around. But now...
I know my neighbors. That's good. I have friends I can confide in (though most are long distance in this world where people move every few years), and that's good.
Hawkeye Pierce (MASH for the unitiated) said once, "Loneliness is everything it's cracked up to be." And it is. It is.
I know how chronic illness can cause isolation personally. I have an illness that causes my eyes to be buggy amongst other things, and I have been amazed at how that has changed relationships. I used to be quite pretty, and now I am unusual heh. I have been amazed at how people treat me differently because of my appearance. My family and good friends do not treat me differently, but it is apparent when I'm forming new relationships. Very interesting how we relate to people by how they look and their differences. I hope your daughter is doing much better now Middle Child.
lol Amy.
Calla I feel exactly as you do. I believe the only things that really matter in this world are our relationships. I don't think that is true of most in this country anymore. I think what is most telling sometimes is peoples' reactions to certain things like when I say my youngest brother (he is 13 years younger than me) lived with us (he moved out two weeks ago). People would say "wow, how do you do it?" I'm thinking what? How do I let my brother live with us? What kind of question is that?
How could you NOT let him live with you?
Have people really grown so cold?
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