Has Our Society Become Numb?

Have we forgotten who we really are?

We live in a complex world. Our society has become almost devoid of feeling in the internet era with incessant conference calls between continents. 

We are living in a 24/7 society. Always on call - never on any down time. 

Many workers sign "0 hours contracts," to even get the foot in the door to the most prestigious companies. These companies have offices and data centers all around the world. 

The weeks turn into months, and we start losing ourselves little by little. Working long hours, big deadlines, stress levels always on max.

After an eight-hour call to the other side of the world to solve a major work issue, and you've missed another weekend with your family. 

Another a one hundred hour week goes by, a colleague phones for your help at 3am on Friday night from somewhere in the world. You miss a camping trip with your son's eagle scouts that you've planned for months.

Life happens whether you're living it, or if you choose to be elsewhere.

What's in it for us when we sign up to work day and night with people across continents? Is it worth missing out on our personal lives?

You're jet lagged without leaving your own house, but your family lives in your time zone. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, our lives have become even more insular as our workforce now has the choice to work from home. We may be talking to people worldwide every day for work, but what do those conversations really mean? 

Everything we say and do seems meaningless, and work focused. We used to be social creatures who depended on one another for comfort and survival. 

We - the human race, have forgotten who we really are.

No one is listening anymore, and because of miscommunication and deep conflicts, unrest has built and developed into wars and despair in many places around the world. 

Many people are desperate and suffering. It's almost incomprehensible for us who are not living in a war zone or countries with cruel dictatorships and political turmoil. 

We don't understand each other.

Our world was not always fractured like this. It's only in the last fifty or so years that our world has changed to be almost unrecognizable. Thanks to the internet we are more connected than ever. 

It's a good thing, right? We can talk to colleagues around the world as if they were in the next room. But, do you remember the people who live in your neighborhood? In your city? 

When did you last have a break without an internet connection? When did you last spend quality time with your family?

Our world used to be slower

People lived off the land, and communities were forced to rely on each other to survive. Everyone knew each other, and supported one another at times of unrest. 

Who can really claim to even have that kind of connection now to the people who live in the house next door, or the apartment above us?

Do you know who your neighbors are? 

What do they do, and where did they come from? 

What is their life story? 

Do you know anything about them at all, other than their names?

If you do, you are the exception. 

Most of us don't know who our neighbors are, but we know about our colleagues Dave (If that's his real name), Soriya and Karim from three countries across the world. 

This distance creates a deep rift in the essence of our society. 

The simple truth is that we don't know each other anymore, and this distance creates a deep rift in the essence of our society. 

We don't value real connection anymore from face-to-face conversations. Instead we doomscroll and flit between data instead of focusing on what's real and in front of us. 

Real human beings with real emotions.

Not robots, not AI, not computers who tell us what we need to do next.

We are in charge of our lives.

We have allowed ourselves to become fragmented. We don't know the people we live amongst. In fact, in most bigger cities, people can live alone in an apartment complex full of people. 

We live our lives alone amid the masses; all we see of our neighbors is when they enter their apartments. We might give them a nod in the hallway, but most people don't stop to chat. 

The suburbs are different because people live in bigger houses that are spread apart by big yards and parks. Here, people need to drive past neighboring houses to get to their homes. 

We see people arrive home and park in their driveway, and we may even stop to chat over the picket fences that separate our yards. Our kids may play together in the streets, which creates connections between families.

Where do you live? Do you have people who support you in your apartment complex or neighborhood? Who can you turn to when you need someone to lean on?

The simple truth is that not everyone has a support network. 

Many people feel marginalized and live alone. These people may be survivors of some kind of trauma or horrific event. Do you even care to find out?

We hear of soldiers returning home from war zones and not coping with readjusting to our world. Decorated war heroes become homeless and sleep on our streets at night in the cold and rain.

No one chooses this life - to be completely alone.

We are social creatures.

There are always reasons that are complex and painful, but those reasons make us pull away from people and live alone. 

Why doesn't anyone care anymore? 

Where is our compassion?

You only have to enter one of our big cities, and you find homeless people sleeping in the subways, doorways, and park benches. 

These people entered this world in the same way we did. 

They may be alone right now, but they were once the product of love. Of two people creating a new human being. 

It makes me wonder… 

What happened to them? How did our world become so disengaged and unfeeling?

As a survivor of trauma and abuse, I look around and see all the despair and pain in our world. I feel it intensely like so many of you who are abuse survivors. 

I grew up in a big city in a large apartment block filled with strangers who didn't know me or my family. Nobody knew my pain, and I suffered alone because of it.

Nowadays, you turn on the news, and the horrors are happening everywhere. It's unbearable.

I see people's pain just from how they are walking or by looking into their eyes. I know that pain myself - only too well. 

Eyes are incredibly powerful windows into how an individual is feeling. I can tell from just a look if someone is hurting. I just know.

Next time you see someone walking past, look at their eyes. What do you see?

I wish the world was a better place, rather than in so much pain. I wish I could help the man I passed in the street just this week on my way to a meeting. 

He looked lost and was staring out into the street where everything was rushing by him. His eyes were of someone who had given up. I never carry cash anymore, so I left him my undrunk coffee. I just set it in front of him, and our eyes met. 

It was enough for me, and I left him with tears pooling in my eyes. I couldn't bear the situation, as I carried on with my day. I'm sure you have all seen people like him in our cities. They are everywhere, and each one of them is lost. 

It should not be this way.

I feel lucky. I left an impossible childhood behind me, and somehow, I landed on my feet, and not out on the street. (Not for long)

As a teenager, I managed to keep a steady paycheck and got myself through college and graduate school with a roof over my head. 

It wasn't easy.

I made it despite my traumatic life up to that point. I was driven to succeed because I had seen worse. It's not easy to break away from trauma, and I have felt despair more times in my years, struggling through work and night school, living paycheck to paycheck. 

It's a life that so many people live. I was lost, just like the man I met on the street, but I chose not to give up. 

Don't give up on the people in your life and those around you. 

Open your heart.

My name is Lizzy. I'm a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

If you like reading my posts, then please follow me.

For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

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Here are a few links to my articles:

Looking for a Change?

https://medium.com/activated-thinker/looking-for-a-change-f391e85abbd7

A Search for Identity

https://medium.com/beyond-lines/a-search-for-identity-893df7c970c2

Are You Searching for Peace?

https://medium.com/illumination/are-you-searching-for-peace-cd54d76231c8

Are You Dealing With Burnout?

https://medium.com/illumination/are-you-dealing-with-burnout-374f774141b4