Connection

Often, now that we have technology, we hear that phones and technology are the death of humanity or that everyone is too addicted to their phone to even be present in society anymore. This becomes even more apparent with COVID-19, considering we are required to physically avoid too much human connection. Yet I find, in any day and age, humans remain and will always remain connected. Why do we love our friends and family? Why do we get lonely? Why do we wish to have gone somewhere everyone else is hanging out at? We want to be with others, even if we value our solitude, in the end having someone is always better than being alone or more specifically being lonely.

Being alone is one thing, most of us can probably go out and get something to eat, sit down, and eat alone and be completely fine. However, a friend telling you they'd rather hang out with their significant other than you? That's loneliness, and a pretty bad friend (maybe I'm using the term a bit loosely). Or how about having no one to talk to, hang out with, share memories with? However, the only reason you wanted to hang out with your friend was for connection and even though that friend might have said no to you, they're still relying on their significant other for connection. No matter how "edgy" someone tries to be, we need human connection; it's honestly one of the things that keep most people sane. I mean I'm sure everyone's read articles in which serial killers are interviewed and they were often "outcasts" before being killers. Often than not, there are times we "lose faith in humanity" and rely on being alone.

Of course we can read articles on serial killers, for example, and think to ourselves "Wow humans are horrible, I've lost all faith in humanity". Or even when reading nasty comments on social media, watching a movie about a horrible person doing horrible things. No matter how much we swear we've lost faith though, we often still continue to make connections with our friends, family, co-workers, colleagues, etc. Sure, it might've been an exaggeration to say we've lost faith, but what if we really did swear off all human interaction and connection? We can try to replace the void with pets and sadly in some people's cases, drugs. Yet again, we reach the same conclusion that maybe human connection is a big source to our sanity.

Yes, human connection = sanity (according to me) but what about attachment issues? There are people out there who rely on people to tell them what to do, how to act, and in the end, it only damages them. No one is completely sane and connection can drive people insane, like how obsessive attachments can lead to stalking, harassing, and hurting other people. What is the cause for that? Often it's a negative human interaction like not getting enough attention at home or maybe even an already pre-existing mental illness but how about the opposite? People who are AFRAID of human connection and would rather be "emotionless" or "alone"? This again is started by a negative human interaction that caused pain strong enough to make someone regret opening themselves up, so they swear human connection off or try to.

In the end, we can't escape connections or people around us with connections. We need connections to land the job we want, to have fun and make memories, to fall in love and have a family. Whatever our goal is most, if not all, of them include connection. Our negative experiences and trauma only prepare us to take better care of our connections and choose wisely on who to let in to our lives.