Human Bonding in a Media-filled World : A Lost Paradise?

A friend once told me - the greatest pain that can be possibly inflicted on a mankind is abandonment.

I didn't realise the significance of those words at the time, but then, that's what life is, right? We encounter several people, live through several moments, not realising their true meaning and value they would later hold for us. But that's beside the point.

Coming back to my original point in mind, what is abandonment?

A prominent dictionary gives " ceasing to support or look after (someone)" as one of the meanings.

This led me to think. Some of the more primitive life forms seem to survive alone. As the animals became more evolved, there is a distinct preference to living in groups, or the beginnings of  'social life'. Humans are highly evolved beings, with complex minds capable of thinking beyond the comprehensible. History has been witness to the rise and fall of several great civilisations with complex social structures.

But suddenly, out of the blue, nowadays we are talking about abandonment. Grown-up children leaving their parents without support, parents who have offspring out of wedlock and are not bothered enough to assume responsibility of the nurturing of the child, men or women who simply abandon their spouses in pursuit of 'better choices'..the list goes on. What happened to the social nature of man?

Is this an issue about money or just attending to a person's needs? Is it as simple as that?

So if a son who lives in the nearby town carefully sends enough money to his parents without fail, but doesn't care to call them even occasionally, or a man provides his wife with all the material comforts, but is emotionally aloof - what does that amount to ?

Now I'm going to go to the other end of the spectrum - consider the guy who is highly active on social media or is surrounded by 'friends' all the time, the girl who parties late into the night with her pals, and every moment in her life is instantly captured and shared with half the world.

It is exactly what it seems to be. We humans have become a confused lot. We crave for companionship but can barely hold our attention to one person or one relationship. We've lost the ability to interact with another person, to share our life, to empathise.

On a subconscious level we are seeking out people to share our lives with - people so far away geographically and emotionally from us that we are nothing but a whatsapp/ facebook notification, quickly glimpsed at and just as quickly deleted from both the phone/laptop as well as the mind.

At the same time, we have become so locked inside our own minds, that we cannot spare a thought or feeling for the person next to us. We neglect to share our moments, experiences and memories with our beloved ones. Parents belong to another generation, the spouse to another planet, the kids to the next era and the friends to the social media.

We are surrounded by technology that has enhanced connectivity and communication, but we've lost the art of communication. In this global village, each person is on his or her own island of loneliness and abandonment. When we neglect or forget to care for others, or abandon them in pursuit of our selfish activities, it eventually comes back to us. This has ample evidence in the form of the rising trend of depression, aggressiveness, suicides, stress -induced illnesses like heart attacks and other disorders.

It is time we stop abandoning the people in our life. It can kill- our humanity, our joy, all the finer feelings of mankind. We should start socialising : in person.


- Loudspeaker