Disassociation and community

Walking down the sidewalk I watch as the masses pass by. Some walk as I do, some ride their bicycles, some drive past in differing cars. I notice that the person ahead of me is wearing headphones, no doubt their favorite music is being piped into their brain. I look and see the cars drive past, their windows up. I see the woman walk towards me and just a few feet from me turn to look across the street, as if there is something very interesting written on the blank brick wall. I walk, block after block, no words are uttered, rarely do eyes meet, rarer still that a smile is exchanged. I continue to walk, block after block, left to my own isolation, my destination an empty apartment. Once I tried saying hello to a man walking past, he quickly ducked his head and quickened his pace. Next time I walk, I will not be alone, I decide. No, I will take with me music that I too can pipe into my brain in an effort to alleviate the lonliness, to fill the void and to banish the silence.

My dad loves to tell stories, of his younger days. He has had a hard life. Now he lives on a small allowance from the government, which is one third of the poverty threshold. Of course he is a bit bitter, of course he looks for happier times in his memories. I do too. He tells me about his childhood and the way his family would get together. My grandfather would take the family out to the family farm and their join several of is eleven brothers and sisters. After dinner one of my dad's uncles would bring out his banjo, my grandfather would play his fiddle, an aunt might sing as my dad's sister would entertain them all with her beautiful dancing. They would sit together for hours talking, sharing, laughing, crying.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about my ex-wife was her family. She was part Italian and Scotish. Both sides tried to stay connected as much as possible, even if they didn't really like each other all that much. In the end they were family and that is what mattered. I would go with her to a family dinner and be one of about thirty people all crammed into a house. People were talking, catching up on each other's lives. People would laugh and tell stories. They would share their lives. I miss it.

I'm riding a bus, listening to music on my walkman, staring out a window. I look around at the other passengers and see that they are mirror images of myself. Everyone together in their isolation. I get off the bus alone, walk to the mall alone. I shop alone and get back on the bus alone. The bus follows its circuitous route as I once again stare out the window at nothing, waiting to get off the bus so that I can go to an empty apartment.

Hundreds of years ago people would live their whole lives in small villages or small towns. There could be as many as four generations of a family all living in the village if not together. If a child decided to move away for work or adventure it is quite possible that they may never see their family again. I wonder what families back then were like? How close were they with each other? Today we have amazing technology that can take us to the ends of the earth and all the while we can stay connected to those back home who we may have left behind. It seems that this technology is a double edged sword though.

Today we have televisions in our kitchens so that we can eat and watch at the same time. This way we don't have to interact with those that are supposedly closest to us. We sit together in a dim room, the light from the TV illuminating our silent faces as nobody talks because the action on the idiot box is vastly more important than anything you or I might have to share. How often do we send someone an email so that we don't have to talk with them in person or at least over the phone? A perfect example is the fact that I'm saying this to a computer screen anonymously rather than actually telling someone what I truly think. How often do we play music in a room to fill the silence because we aren't talking with the other person who is there with us?

It doesn't begin and end with technology though. No, it seems that entirely bent on disassociation rather than community. We would much rather be left alone then to actually connect with another human being even if it simply through a simply friendly smile and hello on the street as we pass by each other. One area in which we choose isolation over connectedness is sex. I see programs on TV now where single people sit and talk about their one-night stands and anonymous sex. I've read columns in newspapers that not only promote the idea of promiscuity and anonymous sex but give tips on how to go about it more effectively. Now, I'm not making a judgment here or going on a rant about the sexual morality of the situation, but rather trying to point out that as this becomes more prevelent one has to notice that we are removing the interconnectedness from the sexual relationship. Before at least you might have to go on a date or two and actually talk with one another before getting to the screwing. Now its setting up appointments for sex over the internet or deciding to screw some person we met while half drunk at a bar. I know that not everyone is doing this. I also know that the amount we hear about it is most likely disproportionate to the amount of people who actually do this sort of thing given our sex obsessed culture. But sex is the ultimate personal interaction and the person who on the street is unwilling to even say hello to a stranger could later that same day give their body away to that same stranger in the name of self gratification speaks to a certain imbalance in the person.

These are all indicators of the fact that we are gradually but continually isolating ourselves from each other voluntarily. It's not like we are being force to segregate ourselves from one another, we choose to do it. Why? Is it easier to be alone? Is it more fun? We are relational creatures so why do we fight so hard to irradicate those relationships? In the end I have to wonder if this is a positive step, because it seems clear to me that the more we disassociate ourselves with the people around us, our ability to empathize with those same people diminishes. This lack of empathic ability leads to apathy and apathy leads to death. Yes, death. How many times have you walked past a person begging on a street corner? How many times have you made some excuse in your head to justify your not giving them your time, money or sympathy? How many times have you read in the newspaper that a homeless person was found dead lying in an alley because they had frozen to death during the night? All of this comes from apathy. We simply don't care about each other because we don't have either the time or ability to connect with one another anymore and to see the simply value of another human being.

I remember a class trip I took to Toronto when I was in highschool. I remember sitting in Union Station watching as hundreds of people walked by in business suits carrying briefcases. I remember noting that it was a rare occasion when one of them would even acknowledge the person at their feet begging for some sympathy, begging to be given a little bit of human dignity, begging that someone might care even in the slightest. Rarer still was it that a person would actually say a word to the person or give them some change. We are part of the richest society in the world. We have more money and resources than we know what to do with, but we have no compassion, we have lost our capacity to empathize with another human being who is suffering. No we would much rather isolate ourselves in our own little worlds as people die on our streets because we don't care enough to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.

I walk block after block, I sit on a bus and stare out a window, I sit in an empty apartment and I wonder all the time what is wrong with our society that we can allow such inhumanity to continue another day. Oh, yeah I forgot, the new season of Survivor is on and we don't have time for something else.

Sincerely;
Vespasian