Paradox of connectedworld, lonely people
India, July 30 -- It began 200 years ago, a blink in the vast timeline of human history, when the Industrial Revolution shifted the world on its axis. Before that, human civilisation moved slowly. Generations passed with little change. A plough here, a wheel there. Evolution was steady, biological, gradual. But in the last two centuries, we hit fast-forward. We leapt ahead with inventions: Machines, chemicals, weapons, technology. Life became easier, faster, more efficient. But we also made mistakes. Bombs, chemical fertilisers, industrial food, all born from good intentions, all with side-effects we're still trying to fix. Each wave of invention brings newer problems, and the stakes keep rising.
Now, even before we could start constructive conversations about new developments in artificial intelligence (AI), we're already deep into its parent wave, the digital one. With the arrival of smartphones, the internet, and social media, another kind of revolution began. This one didn't just change the world outside, but also deeply impacted the one inside. For the first time in history, we started receiving a constant stream of information, 24x7. We are exposed to updates from people we've never met, problems we can't solve, pain we can't hold, and pleasures we can only envy.
Not long ago, if a friend lived 500km away, we wouldn't know about their life unless we met or wrote letters. Now, I know what hundreds of people are eating, doing, feeling, and suffering, every single day. Our nervous systems weren't built for this. Biologically, we haven't evolved at the same pace as our technology. We were never meant to hold this much data, this much of everyone else's life. We're built for intimacy with a few dozen people, to share food and stories, to rest between experiences. We are meant to feel, process, recover.
But now what happens? We scroll. One moment, a heartbreaking video from a war zone. We feel a pang of sorrow. But before that sadness can be processed, we scroll again. Now two strangers are dancing. Before joy lands, we scroll again. Our emotions are pulled in all directions, every few seconds and no emotion finishes its journey.
Imagine a computer processor receiving hundreds of commands without completing the first, again and again, hundreds of times a day, what will happen? It crashes. That's us. Our systems are overloaded, emotionally overfed, spiritually malnourished. No time, no silence. Our bodies are tired. Our emotions half-felt. Our attention splintered.
Then there's dopamine. The kind you get from scrolling, from likes, from pings. It doesn't nourish, it just hooks. Like fast food, it leaves us wanting more and feeling emptier. Osho once asked a man, "What do you feel when you smoke?" The man replied, "Nothing when I smoke. But I feel anxious when I don't."
That's us now with our devices. Mental health issues are rising. Not just in numbers, but in intensity. Disconnection, anxiety, restlessness, sleeplessness. This isn't just because life is hard, it's because it's overstimulated. We sit in rooms full of people, each staring into their own screen. Our worlds no longer overlap, they run parallel, never touching. We're more connected than ever, yet many of us feel unseen, untouched, unknown.
We are in a transitional phase. Just like the Industrial Revolution, this digital age will take decades to fully understand. We're experimenting on ourselves. We don't yet know what a lifetime of scrolling does to the brain. We don't yet understand the cost of comparing ourselves to everyone, every day. But deep down, we sense the loss. We miss the silence. True rest. Presence. We miss feeling one thing at a time, and feeling it fully.
In this hyper-connected world, loneliness is about being surrounded by everything, and still feeling.nothing....
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