Status Updates From Loneliness: Human Nature an...

We became creatures not just of the moment, but of the future and the past.

The dysregulation caused by loneliness consigns us to the extremes of either suffering passively (responding too little) or being “difficult” (responding too intensely). The distinctive human adaption is to be socially cooperative in a way that allows us to optimize the advantages of the group while retaining our own individuality.

We humans take great pride in our intelligence — our capacity for rational thought — as what sets us apart from the rest of nature, and yet we usually gauge an individual’s virtue or “humanity” not in terms of brain power but in terms of his or her emotional sensitivity.

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and along these fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”

The tandem influence of inheritance and individuality is why each of us experiences loneliness in a way that is unique, idiosyncratic, and grounded in the particulars of our life history and own immediate situation.

The trend toward greater isolation was set in motion by a new cultural focus on the individual.

A primary benefit of having satisfying social connections is that it allows us to find self-regulatory behaviors that promote resonance with others (rather than humiliation and regret), that do not put us in awkward or dangerous situations, and that are not, ultimately, counterproductive when it comes to enhancing the satisfaction we find in social connection.

What feels like solitary confinement need not be a life sentence.