Ground control to Major Tom : The lost and lonely of the human cosmos

'Here am I floating 'round my tin can , far above the moon

Planet Earth is blue , And there's nothing I can do.'

 

 

Thus concludes David Bowie’s epic space ballad; the bittersweet tale of a lonely Astronaut stuck forever in the vast oblivion of outer space. The song however cuts deeper for the more impassioned fans of Bowie, who identify it as the late singer-songwriter's struggle with his own loneliness and depression. And today in the pandemic ravaged world, its core message rings truer than ever before.

Reading an article in the Harvard Magazine entitled ‘The Loneliness Pandemic’ I was left both shocked and comforted by how strongly I related to its contents. My struggles I found out were not all unique but in fact as much a trademark of my generation as effeminate East Asian pop stars, bizarre feline humour and unhealthy obsessions with early 2000s’ sitcoms.The ubiquitous nature of loneliness today indicates a failure of society on a more fundamental level. 

My engineering brain can’t understand it, with global populations at an all time high, shouldn't there be more people to befriend, more social interactions and less opportunities for loneliness to seep in. More people equals less scope for loneliness right? Turns out; not quite. My hypothesis was based on an elementary understanding of loneliness and how it could be curbed. The human mind and social fabric is a bit more complicated and nuanced as it turns out.

Understanding what causes loneliness and why it’s spreading at such an alarming rate forms quite an interesting case study of human nature  covering multiple fields of knowledge. But that’s not what this blog post is about. No! This is me cribbing about my own insecurities and problems in the hope some of you can relate and feel a bit better and if not have a good laugh at my expense. If I fail at doing both, I apologise and promise to do better next time.

Right! Back to the topic at hand. 

I AM LONELY. I feel incurably lonely,sick and tired of my current mental state. Like Major Tom in his tiny capsule, I feel stuck in my own head floating through time and space. The days all merge into one, an unending routine with no end at sight.

I'm at that age where I no longer make friends, just friendly acquaintances. The friends from past years just drift away, forgotten in the memory of unfulfilled plans and unopened WhatsApp chats. Work slowly takes over to fill my nine to five and the cruel screen imprisons me till the dead of night, attacking my need for dopamine whilst cleverly slicing away at my attention span. Soon human interaction seems tedious, too much of an effort and I roll back into the comfort of the screens. My precious calls out to the Gollumn I have become and I slowly fade away. 

It’s not like I go down without a fight. Like the lonely astronaut I send out radio signals with no hope of reply and more interestingly when the replies do come, I ignore them. Too many disappointments and defeats weigh heavy on me.Looking back at the people I’ve lost along the way I recoil in my shell. Connections which once seemed unbreakable crumbled like Mjolnir in Hela’s hands and I think - ‘Why bother?’. It seems easier to cut people off, to hide behind the screens and accept my fate with stoic resolution. 

Maybe it’s just a phase I can outgrow, maybe it’s a generational thing or maybe it’s just me. I worry about it a lot but don’t really do anything to change it. Or am I just overthinking this?