Lack Of Commincation


Atwater Vitki
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I saw this:

TomPeters "Loneliness is the black death of the 21st century." Yesterday, 06:02 PM

and just had to say this:

Isn't that interesting? We live in a society where you can be 300 miles from the Middle of Nowhere, camping in unexplored vast landscapes, and you can hear "twillllitt chirp twillllit chirp You've got voice-mail!" on one's iPlug, PurpleBerry, Smurk Phone or other device...and yet people are LONELY. Is that a commentary on society or what?

We have more ways to CONTACT each other through our devices than ever before and yet loneliness seems to be a disturbing up and coming trend. Why? IMHO that because people confuse "contact" with "communication". Many of our kids can spend hours twit-exting, brow-urfing and faceless booking, yet ask them to check in once and awhile and "I'm so busy!", "I forgot!" or "I didn't have a connection"....for weeks and months on end...which all us "adults" know is a bigger crock than even Steve Irwin would've tackled.

Go to any mall and watch the mindless zombies walking around talking to them selves "Okay! They have one in blue, pink and yellow..." "...oh you want the 18 oz bottle of...." "so then what did Jillian say? OMG! you're kidding me! That's so...." "...so is it pizza or mini-sliders?...red hot or regular....extra crispy or crumb coat?...." I never know when I'm walking through talking zombies or human beings anymore...mouths moving everywhere yet no one is saying jack spit.

Jibber-jabber on the lowdown side of uptown man!

Yet we can't seem to communicate our feelings, what really makes us tick or how we honestly think...everything is pseudo talk.. nothing is real any more all just bytes and bits of what family use to be all about....exchange of communication with each other.

People I know are continuously amazed that we send cards, write letters (actual hand written, in 'cursive', paper and envelope with a stamp, letters) and even know where our mailbox is.

So Tom Peters, I totally agree with you that loneliness is indeed the black death of our modern society, but it's not because of the lack of tools to contact each other. It's because of all the choices we have through technology one thing is sorely lacking...the ability to COMMUNICATE or the process of "Being in verbal contact to interchange or exchange information or ideas"

Too many people know how to push the buttons, but then the grim reality of "Now what?" sets in!

One of many reasons I like the forums here, a place to exchange and communicate instead of just pushing buttons and making vocalized noise from our throats!

Hope your loneliness is soon gone and your life is full of real, heartfelt communication Tom.

Blessings of Peace,

Edited by RevAl
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This reminds me of a time I found my two daughters sitting on the couch texting each other. I asked them why didn't they put the phones down and just talk. My oldest told me they didn't have anything to talk out. It left me completely dumb founded.

Sounds kind of like my nephew and me playing chess against each other on-line in two adjoining rooms.

We're both watching seperate channels on TV most the time while we play.

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RevAl, thank you for your insightful expansion on my comment. Such a substantive exchange of ideas actually itself somewhat eases my sense of solitude. There is intelligent life on Earth after all!

Our shared sentiments, though made worse by the modern age of technology, have precedents in earlier times. I think it was Thoreau, in the telegraph age, who said that soon we shall have the ability to speak instantly from one side of the country to another, but the question is whether we will have anything worthwhile to say.

[ETA: I think the Thoreau quote is this: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas, but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. . . . We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic . . . ; but perchance the first news that will leak through the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."]

Technology's a big part of it; I think also economic mobility and the fracturing of the family; a reduced sense of confidence in any definitive set of core shared values or even any canon of art, literature, or thought; as well as an unbelievable amount of economic specialization such that it's often very hard to identify a profession or trade you're part of an interact with on a daily basis. I don't think there's any social solution -- just the individual choice to make the effort and reach out -- or not.

Friendship is a sacrament.

Edited by TomPeters
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