“Sometimes I wish I had never met you. Because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.” From Good Will Hunting
The most important human need is the need to attach. You’d never know that living in today’s world. So many of us are constantly chattering on our cell phones saying nothing or blindly staring at our computers that we hardly realize that we aren’t emotionally close to others and we don’t really know ourselves very well. We’re strangers in a strange land. We’re losing the aptitude for closeness. Family members often become roles to each other rather than real people. With the best of intentions parents frequently go on missions to prove they aren’t failures. Meanwhile they and their children hardly know each other. They’re too busy to know each other. It’s a modern tragedy.
Today’s parents are conscientious but forget the basics. They may work long hours outside the home and feel compelled to get their kids to multiple after-school activities. They couldn’t even conceive of having a family dinner together or just hang out with their kids. Family dinners and hanging out have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Loved ones each go their separate ways hooked to some form of electronica or are preoccupied with yet another activity outside the home. Unfortunately this estrangement causes modern parents to lose faith in their own sufficiency and significance. They wonder what they’re good for.
On top of that, children today aren’t allowed to be children. Letting kids be innocent is a thing of the past. Thanks to over-the-top media coverage and salacious sitcoms, children get overexposed to the multiple gruesome failings and sexual immaturity of adult life. They become burdened by things they aren’t mature enough to handle. They lack mentors. In our post-9/11 world kids today don’t trust adults. They don’t see unfamiliar adults as a source of refuge; they see them as threats. Furthermore, children get separated from each other thanks to our overly competitive, achievement-obsessed culture and “every man for himself” mentality. To be close to one another, children may need to drop out or underachieve. Schools are training camps for the corporate world, not places of learning. Learning and the sharing of learning for its own sake is a thing of the past.
Nowadays we settle for fake imitations of closeness.
Most sadly, children get disconnected from their parents. Texting is chosen over dialoguing with parents over the phone. Knowing how already burdened their parents are and knowing how uncool it is to show insecurities, children are unlikely to turn to their parents for guidance. Time was when these insecurities were part of a normal childhood and lead to a rich bonding experience between parents and children. Bonding? Who has time for bonding?! Nowadays children must hide their insecurities and lead a secret life apart from their parents. They go underground and tell parents what they want to hear. Such isolating has its price. The teen suicide rate has increased four times in the past 30 years. The really sad part is that people in modern families really do love each other as much as they always have. It’s just that they don’t know or intimately connect with each other. They shun emotional closeness.
Illusions of closeness in modern life
Nowadays we settle for fake imitations of closeness. Yes, the world has gotten incredibly smaller and more complex thanks to the inclusion of electronica in our personal lives. You can go on the internet and learn about your family origins, locate lost old high school friends, discover children you never knew you had, chat endlessly on personal web sites to connect and compare notes and stay in touch with loved ones 24-7 on cell phones. Thanks to advances in wireless technology the possibilities for connection are mind-boggling. Sometimes these e-connections really are invaluable. However in general, are these electronic communications really bringing us closer? I rather doubt it.
Why is this? When things become too easy and instantaneous they lose their meaning. Much knowledge and support from a variety of strangers is conveyed online rather quickly. However, let’s not confuse information with wisdom. Native people used to say, “Much schooling, little know,” when referring to European Americans. Such is the case today. In fact the depth of caring between people has declined and most of us are less people-wise than ever. We would be a lot smarter if we took the risk of exposing ourselves in real life to another human being and learning from it rather than hiding who we are and chatting online with strangers in a fantasy world. We would have greater safety and control with face-to-face communications rather than chatting online with supposed friends and potentially lose all of your privacy forever. We would have more depth of character if we wrote a letter in longhand, licked a stamp to send it through snail mail and waited endlessly for a response than always clicking an instant message to our supposed Facebook friends. We would feel way more alive if we had tea with a friend and stared tenderly into his or her eyes rather than rattle on our cell phone with an ambiguous response to a friend in need. Real life always trumps vicarious living. It may be slower but it’s the real thing.
Many of us fall for the promise of connection through technology. We are starved for connection mostly because we rarely experience it. Our attention spans are short and we can’t stand to wait. We buy into the myths that things solve our bonding needs because their gratification is instant. Indeed things don’t solve our bonding needs. Let’s not forget that we’re all fundamentally human. In fact, the majority of essential communication is nonverbal, expressed through human touch, eye contact, body language, tone of voice, sensual stimulation and physical proximity. This occurs in our brain’s amygdala’s, the emotional centers of our identities. Most electronic communication is verbal and cognitive and doesn’t give us an emotional experience of each other. It merely involves prefrontal cortex brain activity, the thinking and planning part of our brains. We may react emotionally to an electronic message but we have no way of deriving an accurate meaning from it. It takes hugging and eye contact and brain activity to derive meaning.
What is emotional closeness and why is it so important?
Intimacy is the process in relationships where needs are generally met and differences are generally accepted. It’s where you and your loved one can let your hair down and truly be yourselves. It’s where you and another human being share each other’s no so lovely parts and you both can laugh about those parts. It’s where you don’t have to be perfect. It’s where you can just be you. Only some of us experience true emotional intimacy in our lifetimes. Yet we’re all hungry for it.
The most important human need is the need to belong. We’re fated to be close. Connection turns on our brains for learning, improves our immune systems, releases a chemical in our brains like oxycontin that reduces stress and brightens our mood. We humans are wired to connect. Our cognitive, physical, moral, and social intelligence is fundamentally wrapped around our ability to be intimate with one another. Surrogates of human connection will not do the trick. For example, if you want your children to learn to read, throw away the Baby Einstein’s and simply sit down with your kids, cuddle and enjoy reading to them. We learn from connection and imitation, not staring at machines.
Taking a personal inventory: Am I really close to others?
Most of us really have difficulties getting close to others and knowing ourselves. We may succeed in many aspects of life but exposing ourselves to other human beings is not one of them. Most of us crave closeness but are way too scared to be intimate with others. Some of us may fool ourselves into thinking we have lots of friends. We do activities with others and then call them friends. Often we don’t even know what we’re missing. For others, intimacy may feel downright dangerous. We may have been hurt repeatedly in apparently close relationships and vow never to expose ourselves to harm again. Accordingly we may develop a set of automatic survival behaviors that block us from being close to others. We survive but don’t thrive. Many of us have mood disorders due to an isolation from others. You may have difficulties with closeness if:
- Your social life is primarily spent online with presumed friends.
- No one person regularly checks in with you to see how you are doing and vice-versa.
- No one really knows your greatest failings or achievements besides yourself.
- You have a variety of social buddies none of whom really know your limitations.
- You are plagued with chronic bouts of low-grade depression or anxiety.
- You worry that no one will show up for your funeral or little will be said about your life.
- Sometimes you wish you could just run away from it all and forget your present life.
- You lack a regular spiritual practice.
- You see friends as people who want something from you or people to be used.
- You regularly rely on drugs or alcohol to numb out.
Why we stay stuck in loneliness
Culture plays a huge role in why many of use aren’t close to one another. Many of us have generous hearts and give to others in crisis. However this is not the norm today in every day living. Research tells us that there has been an enormous loss of social engagement and civic responsibility in the last 30 years primarily due to overwork, excessive reliance on electronic home entertainment and media brainwashing. Typically neighbors don’t schmooze with neighbors, don’t join bridge clubs, volunteer in the community or turn out to vote as they once did. Families keep to themselves and cocoon in their home entertainment centers. The instant appeal of the media and all of its hysteric and mind-numbing hype essentially runs our families. We get entranced by screen life. Too many of us actually believe that what happens on TV is real life and take it at face value, perhaps to imitate or perhaps to abhor. Too many of us have short attention spans and we can’t imagine going slower for a greater good. We want what other people have rather than think for ourselves. Unfortunately the emptiness of vicarious connection keeps us lonely, scares us from trusting others and diminishes our ability to nurture ourselves through real flesh-and-blood relationships. Like lemmings going over the cliff, we lose out.
Many of us have mood disorders due to an isolation from others.
Some of us have legitimate personal reasons why we stay disconnected. To be emotionally close to others may feel alien and frigthening; staying distant from others may be comfortable and familiar. Many of us are way too scared to have others really know us and care for us. Deep down we don’t feel we deserve it. We opt for distant relationships because they are familiar. Sheldon Kopp, a famous psychoanalyst put it best when he said, “We prefer the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.” Rather than face what we fear and risk deep closeness we settle for mediocrity and pretend that’s all we need. Fear of intimacy is nothing to be laughed at. It’s a disabling epidemic. Often we need help to allow others to love us.
Becoming more connected
Just the fact that you’re reading this article affirms your interest about being closer to others. It’s essential that you recognize good qualities in yourself no matter how many misgivings you have about your identity. You do have something of value to offer others. Getting connected is along journey with many detours and dead ends. Give yourself all the time in the world to be on this journey. Setbacks are inevitable. The key to becoming more connected to others is persistence. Most of us settle for less rewarding relationships because we’ve given up too soon in the face of adversity. Learn from setbacks and grow beyond them. Ask yourself, “What can I change in myself or what more can I ask from others to be more connected?” Never give up.
If you’re already involved in a relationship that is weighing you down, give it less power. Seek closeness on your own apart from that relationship by emotionally engaging more deeply supportive friends. Remember, you alone are responsible for your happiness, no one else. Read Too Close For Comfort by Gerldine K. Piorkowski to grasp what you’re challenged with in meeting more rewarding friends. Consider getting mentoring from a good 12 Step group and a competent professional helper. Learn from adversity. There is a great line in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes that says, “I wonder how many people never get the one they want, but end up with the one they’re supposed to have.” Most of us need to get stuck in relationships based on forgotten past relationship hurts. Uncovering these hurts and learning from them amazingly frees us up to be in richer, more substantial relationships. Pain can inevitably lead to gain if you learn and repair. Actually I don’t think anybody sails through life without pain, no matter how good their life looks. For growth to occur it’s how you change yourself, no how to find the perfect partner, that counts the most. Be the person that you want to find in the other.
Finally, don’t buy into the myth of passivity so inherent to modern living. Put yourself out there for people to know. Turn off your cell phone and talk to strangers about their day. See how much you are like them. Limit recreational online living and screen media to a bare minimum, say one hour a day, and move your body. Get out and take a walk in the park or go to the gym and make small talk with people you hardly know. Get curious about people. You may be surprised at how people appreciate you and your attention. Get into real life and away from pretend life. You don’t have to hide to be acceptable, you’re already OK. You’ll be dazzled by how much fun it is to actually participate in life. It beats electronica!
This article first appeared in the October 2010 issue of The Phoenix Spirit.
