The lack of human touch

Author
Karla Solano

Our lives are like the ocean, full of energy and emotion. Sometimes the tide is high and full of rage and other times the tide is very still and peaceful. Just like the ocean, our emotions may have us go on a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, especially when we feel lonely.

Loneliness is a feeling of not belonging, a feeling of being out of place in a world full of people where no one seems to connect with us the way we need them to.

We've all had moments where we feel as though there is nobody who can understand what we are going through, but the reality is that nowadays there are lots of people seeing therapists to help them cope with depression and loneliness.

I have always wondered how in today’s society one can avoid feeling lonely when technology keeps creating new ways for the human touch to be less and less possible. I grew up in an era where if you needed to talk to someone you would either stop by their place with the hope that the person would be home or would pick up the phone to make a call and actually have a conversation with another human being.

In today’s world however, if you want to find out how someone is doing or if they are available to hang out, all you do is type up a text message with short sentences or in some cases there is just abbreviation to the words. I find this very disheartening.

While I think it’s great that we have become so advanced in the past 10 yrs with new technology, I feel that as a human race we have taken many steps back towards isolating ourselves from one another; thus, creating the feeling of loneliness, depression and the need to depend on antidepressants just to fill the void of not having the human touch needed to survive as a race.

We should follow the examples nature has to offer when it comes to bonding with others. The female lion pack always stays together; when they are hunting, the female lions take turns to ensure the cubs are safe and sound and they guard each other fearlessly in the face of danger; take the penguins for example, the male penguins are the ones in charge of keeping the eggs warm during the rough winter season. The male penguins gather together in a very tight circle, to seal their collective body heat during the toughest months of winter to protect their eggs from being hatched prematurely.

It is incredible to watch how these creatures that apparently have no rational like human kind does, are more capable of showing love, warmth and compassion for their fellow animal kind. We have so much to learn from nature and it is sad to know that we have become so egotistical as to believe that by posting a picture of ourselves on the net and e-mail or text each other as a form of bonding with each other, is enough not to interact with others in person. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe in paying a visit to a friend and picking up the phone just to hear the voice of the people I care about.

We as human beings need to make an effort to make this world a better place to live in, especially when the rate of abandoned babies, violence and the trauma being caused to children of divorced parents, is not getting any smaller. All of these issues are created by the lack of love and attention we display for one another.

It all starts with the foundation we form in our family unit, if as parents we don’t teach our children how to love, and how to interact with others on a one to one basis, this world will be an empty, dark and lonely place. And I feel anguish just thinking about what it will be like for the next generations to come, unless we make an effort to have the human touch be an essential part of our existence.