What if Loneliness is Good
on my bad days
the loneliness feels physical those are
the words of jan ford
a 40 year old clerical assistant who
celebrated her 40th birthday
alone in her part in her apartment
she’d been recently interviewed by the
guardian
about the impact of loneliness for those
people in lockdown living alone
she told the newspaper that she’d never
had much previous experience of
loneliness
but now she feels it drilling into her
bones
on her bad days she said that she can
barely open a can of beans
because she feels all her energy is
already consumed by just getting by
jan is one of thousands of people who
have been quoted
in the articles about loneliness in
lockdown
about the the dramatic physical and
mental
downturn in the effects of it
but as a result we are being sold an
alarming
narrative by the media that there is
an epidemic a virus a silent killer in
our midst
that is more powerful and can kill more
people than covet 19.
the former u.s surgeon general vivec
murphy famously said that the most
common illness that he saw in his years
of service
was not heart disease or diabetes it was
loneliness
mother teresa she described loneliness
as the greatest poverty
the leprosy of the modern world
as humans our connections enable us to
survive and thrive
and the most deepest human desire is to
belong
there’s something deeply ingrained in
all of us that wants to have a shared
identity whether that’s our shared
identity of our nationality
our religious beliefs our race and
ethnicity or our interests
think for example how many of us love to
go abroad
to get away from it all and yet we
frequent our irish pub
or we start up a conversation with total
strangers as soon as we hear
the local accent think of
people in sport the football fans how
they love to express their shared
identity by wearing the their team’s
shirt did you know that um man united
sold three and a quarter million jerseys
in the year
2018-19 the top team in the world
often we just follow the habits of our
ancestors
um without knowing without thinking
without
questioning but there’s definitely
something deeply involved in us that
wants to belong
and wants to have a common identity with
other people
now covet social distancing and lockdown
has really threatened our ability to
connect
and it has upset our social norm
our contact with friends and family um
work colleagues even strangers
has all been upset you know think
think back to your joyous moments um
the heavy experiences of going to
sporting events
concerts music festivals the theater
that can no longer happen think back to
happy birthday
that used to mean that you were at a
birthday party not starting alone
washing your hands
and even the absence of doing things for
stopping for a cup of coffee well start
shopping
or going into a cafe to work on your on
your pc
among strangers even that you know it
made us feel part of something
bigger than ourselves so totally out of
the blue
now we are feeling like jan ford and we
are experiencing our first taste of
loneliness
a better most unexpected and unwanted
side effect of the coronavirus pandemic
but what is meant by this word
loneliness
before 1830 loneliness and lonely were
rarely appeared in writing in 1674 the
naturalist john ray compiled a glossary
of infrequently used words
and he listed loneliness in that list
he deter he defined it as a term that
simply meant
places and people far from neighbors
around 1830 the time of the industrial
revolution
there was a dramatic shift in language
and loneliness started to be
regularly portrayed as a negative state
of being
and by 1860 we were all introduced to
probably the most
famous lonely character
the doomed spinster in charles dickens
books the great
expectations after that there were many
other lonely characters
including mark david caulfield he was
the lead
character in j d salinger’s book the the
catcher in the rye
he was blamed for inciting assassins
including
mark david chapman who shot john lennon
and he was found at the scene of his
arrest reading from the book
fiction are lonely characters but there
is nothing fictional about loneliness
the facts are that more than three and
five americans
are lonely according to a survey by
cigna insurers
and whilst we often associate loneliness
with old age
a yougov survey revealed that
millennials
that is the social media generation are
in fact the one that feels the most
lonely
with one in three saying that they are
often are always lonely
the office of national statistics in may
2020
revealed that five percent of the
british residents
uh 2.6 million people were chronically
lonely
shockingly in november 20 that figure
has
risen to 8 4.2 million
communities have changed gone in the
days
of nipping around to the neighbor to
borrow a cup of sugar
and i can fondly remember the open doors
in our neighborhood
people would just call in uninvited
unannounced and they were always
welcomed with the cup of tea and the
homemade
bread we used to call it tequila
it’s a commonly known irish term
but sadly today 73 percent of
of uk residents don’t know their
neighbors names
but enough doom and gloom the theme
today of
tedx cookstown is what if
so what if loneliness was good
pre-1800 when people were described as
lone as lonely
it simply meant that they were in a
state of loneliness and solitude from
the latin word
solace meaning alone being lonely did
not imply
any emotional lack in fact it was a
positive word
a time when people could reflect and
discover who they really were
it had holy connotations jesus was often
lonely and contemplative
and solitude was often associated with
intellectual breakthroughs
and great moments of creativity in 1606
shakespeare was actually in quarantine
from the bubonic plague
and at the time where just like now all
the theaters were closed
and he wrote three of his greatest works
king lear
macbeth and anthony and cleopatra
in 1687 newton sat lonely under a tree
and he discovered gravity in 1804
wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud
resulting in his best known work
and in 1928 alexander fleming the lonely
researcher discovered penicillin
and changed the course of medicine
in september 2019 before covert was born
the historian doctor find bind alberte
dr faye bind alberti she published a
biography of loneliness
the history of an emotion she says we
tend to think of lonely people just
needing and waiting for others to reach
out and to help and support them and to
make them feel less lonely
but she does say that this is an
injustice to the different types of
emotions involved
loneliness is complex some people feel
lonely
despite being surrounded by extensive
networks and others may not
even if they live alone often
people often lonely people don’t
necessarily want
company and even those that do they
certainly don’t want just anybody
having owned a matchmaking company i can
certainly vouch for that
many people simply like being alone
using the time to be creative where to
study
and i’m sure there are so many others
like me who some days
just want to run away to be on my own
whilst i in no way wish to belittle
anyone suffering from chronic loneliness
i firmly believe that in this age of
covert
the last thing that people need to be
told
is that being alone means that they are
in danger
of falling victim to another epidemic
reading and hearing continuous negative
narrative about loneliness
drills into the mind and if it isn’t
halted
will become a self-fulfilling prophecy
we at circuit breaker lockdowns we now
need circuit breakers and loneliness
we need investment in new education
to raise awareness and understanding of
the positive power of the mind
how to apply that science and to disrupt
and counteract negativity
something that we were never taught in
schools
most importantly the media must stop
this overwhelming barrage of negative
language and loneliness
which serves no purpose whatsoever other
than to increase
people’s anxiety and their feelings of
helplessness
conditioning them into depression
instead the media must help to influence
people to embrace the idea
that this is a rare opportunity to be
alone in the positive sense of the word
just like the pre-1800s as mandy hill
said
a season of loneliness and isolation is
when the caterpillar gets its wings
it will take time i personally can say
that as a former bank manager i
discovered that i was institutionalized
over those 35 years
i never even realized that i was
creative
it took a while to uncover it and
unearth it
and decide to go self-employed to
utilize my
innate ability to connect people
during lock time lockdown i2 had time to
sit
in lonely contemplation to contemplate
loneliness
and i wondered how can we keep connected
whilst being apart
what if this period of solitude was an
opportunity to do things differently
and transform the way we deliver
connectiveness forever
what if people from across the world
could come together to share interests
learn new things or simply to be
entertained
what if loneliness could be tackled
and we could provide a support structure
and a sense of belonging
for people like jan ford
whilst i continue to further develop my
ideas to bring the answers to these
questions to life
much more needs to be done to change
societal attitudes and perceptions of
loneliness
people fearing for their jobs and
families
businesses facing closure people without
internet
access children going without subsidised
meals during school holidays
should be regarded as a truly lonely
the world’s governments need a period of
lonely contemplation
to restore their 2020 vision and
foresight
the best thing that could come out of
lockdown would be the total
re-evaluation
and recreation of how our society is
structured
what if what if this were to happen
it would make loneliness a force for
good