Honestly, I've been struggling with a sense of isolation lately? I wonder if this is a common experience. If so, what does it look like for you? How do you understand it (I'm coming to see it as an experience that we share, one built into the structures of our society)? Perhaps most relevant, how do we overcome this feeling and build a sense of connection ... with each other, in community, and with a higher transcendent Presence?
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I don't know if this is an answer, so much as another observation that is slowly coming upon me. Anyway, I've been thinking that, beyond the physical isolation that many continue to feel in the pandemic, so much of this isolation we feel is something that we've brought upon ourselves ... by buying into the extreme version of the idea of individualism that has been packaged and sold to us by the billionaire class that now controls the levers of society. The more of an "individual" I become (which is the object, right?), the more alone I must also become.... Well, thoughts?
From the outside looking in, some would say that I have it all, but that is just one layer of my ever changing onion. The deeper one goes in pulling back the layers they will find a different individual, one that is lost, sometimes in isolation, but sometimes with others. Even though I'm in company with others my mind is off in another world, and not present in the current space that I'm in. An action that I made a priority to help combat this feeling is to reach out via letters and phone calls to childhood friends and those that I've gone to school with. By reaching out to those that I've spoken to in recent time or possibly years, is a great reminder that I can live in the present and enjoy the beauty around me. Instead of getting lost in my own thoughts, which I still do on occasion, I find myself connecting and sharing what is going on in my life, even though it might not seem like much. My hope is to continue to work at and invest in building strong friendships that withstand more than just one chapter of my life to help combat my feelings of isolation.