that rare malady
cure fully known costs little
so hard to achieve
Social isolation is the rare malady whose cure is fully known and costs relatively little, yet is still so difficult to achieve.
In the 21st century, we are a social species living atomized lives; even when living in a high-rise apartment building in a densely inhabited city, surrounded by people in every direction, we can easily feel bereft and melancholy.
From the Opinion Piece .. We Know the Cure for Loneliness. So Why Do We Suffer? by By Nicholas Kristof.
Mr. Kristof writes, “As for physical infrastructure to address loneliness, one example is the “chatty bench,” adopted in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia. This is a park bench with a sign encouraging strangers sitting there to chat with each other; in a Northern Ireland town, the sign says: “Sit here if you are happy to chat with passers-by.”
There are also “talking cafes,” where people are encouraged to gab with other coffee drinkers. There are “libraries of things,” where you can mingle with neighbors to borrow camping equipment or a carpet cleaner or lend out your own gear.
My wife and I, we talk to people.
Try to catch their eye and say hello.
If we are looking for anyone to talk back, it is usually little kids.
Little kids gravitate to my wife as they have been raised to ‘not to talk to strangers’ and they rarely meet anyone stranger than me.
More times than not, when a little kid gets brave enough to talk to me, they will say, “Do you know you have a gold tooth?“
To which I immediately look over one shoulder and lower my head and confide that, well, see … I’m a pirate.
Which usually delights them and they turn to their Mom and say, “Mom, Mom, this guy’s a PIRATE!!!!!”
Which goes mostly to reinforce Mom’s thoughts to have that ‘no talking to strangers‘ lecture one more time.
But that doesn’t do much for the topic at hand does it.
Social isolation is the rare malady whose cure is fully known and costs relatively little, yet is still so difficult to achieve.
In the 1941 film, Meet John Doe, Gary Cooper as John Doe catches on nationwide with a movement based on the phrase, Be a Better Neighbor.
Be a better neighbor …
Maybe it’s a lost cause.
But in the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith says:
I guess this is just another lost cause Mr. Paine.
All you people don’t know about lost causes.
Mr. Paine does.
He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for and he fought for them once. For the only reason any man ever fights for them.
Because of just one plain simple rule.
Love thy neighbor.
(BTW Frank Capra directed both pictures.)
Love thy neighbor.
A lot longer ago than 1939 and before there were films, one of the Pharisees, an expert in the law as it is says, asked Jesus, ‘which is the greatest commandment?’
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment … And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Love your neighbor.
And when Jesus was asked what or who was a neighbor, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan.
We are told that the numbers of church goers is dropping at an accelerated rate.
People are moving fast to disassociate themselves from the ‘Chosen Frozen.’
Maybe if we tried to be better neighbors.
Mr. Kristof writes: “Solutions to loneliness are like that — little nudges to encourage us to mingle the way we evolved to. They’re so easy, and loneliness seems so debilitating, that we should be doing more.
We Americans, atomized and polarized, addicted and distressed, are a lonely crowd. Overwhelming evidence suggests that for the sake of our happiness and well-being, we need one another.”
