The loneliness of the part-time expat...conversation, anyone?

[DonJuane]

As the COVID tramps onward, for some reason a section of the initial query here remains locked in the corner of my brain. I don't know exactly why but I keep revisiting the concept of loneliness and what it means to you, to me or even to a world consisting of not anyone in particular. I personally believe that loneliness has become a permanent fixture of our own society and that it shall always remain an integral part. Every aspect of our behavior over the past decades has turned us from "love thy neighbor" to "I got mine, Jack" so it's no wonder we are lonely. And simply being around people doesn't always help. I think a major part of our downfall has been the total loss of the skill of listening. But listening cannot be a part of a society whose members are only concerned with themselves. And it's proven both face to face and in social media alike. All that can be mustered as our best face forward on social media is the typical "slack-tavist" "LIKE" button, followed not with even a brief kind word to provide more support than that. Couple this with the reality we are actually not interested in anything that doesn't concern us personally and it's no wonder that listening is a dead art.

If you take a hard look sometimes when a discussion is unfolding within a group and if you look around the room you may imagine a race track where every horse is about to "bust a gut" waiting for the gate to spring open, watching for someone's lips to pause just long enough to take a breath - where the metaphoric starting shot is fired and the next horse moves to the front. And why even bother with the conversation is a thought I often ponder, because it's likely that only the current speakers lips and voice fluctuations are being monitored and solely to queue the next speaker.

Therefore in a society that can no longer listen and because of all which has destroyed their ability to listen, loneliness is and will continue to be with all of us for a very long time.