Lessons in isolation.

I believe that during these tumultuous times it’s important to stay connected.

Let’s consider some historical background: We learn history in school, but unfortunately this is usually the surface stuff and is dramatized or romanticized (Hollywood needs to weigh in here); it doesn’t always include the nitty-gritty realities of life. Herein I’m thinking about one of the downsides to homesteading the American West. History, if or when one digs deep enough, shows us that one of the major problems for people who homesteaded was isolation. Yes, there were many problems, angry/hostile Indians, working a hard unforgiving land; lack of water and rain, possible starvation, the list goes on. But isolation was the one single factor that caused many homesteaders to pack up and move back to the city. Think of it. Here you are on your little plot of land, miles from your neighbors, a day’s horseback ride from any town. What naturally happens is that in isolation people start fantasizing and making stuff up, creating fictions within their own internal landscape. For some, their internal distortions meant a lot of suffering and drove them insane, even suicide. We humans seem to have this knack of filling in the blanks with fictions surrounding boredom and things we don’t know or understand. It’s part of being human and why we suffer, consequently why we often hear the phrase, “those who don’t pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it.”

The frontier life of the American West is gone, but the lessons of isolation remain. Most of us need our socialization in order to maintain our sanity. We really need to remember this during times like these when we are forced to isolate due to catastrophes and pandemics.

Some believe that watching the news is a way of staying connected. However, I submit, the news is a two edged sword. While it’s necessary to stay informed, news can also devastate the psyche to a point of no return, insanity, especially when there are too many fictions and we can’t or are unwilling to sort them out. The news media’s primary function is to turn a financial profit, making money for its investors. Therefore, in order to turn a profit, whatever the current event is it must be sellable to the public at large in ways that the general public wants to see it. Unfortunately, people are pretty much ho-hum about all the wonderful things that happen and turn all eyes and ears when it comes to the not so wonderful. As a result, over time a person’s preconception about the world at large can be heavily biased toward the negative. Wisdom shows us: If you speak profound truths, most people yawn, and if they dare, they leave you. But when you tell them absurd fables they’re all eyes and ears. We wish our doctrines, whether religious, philosophical, social, or political to be agreeable and consistent with our preconceptions, to satisfy our inclinations; in fact we wish to find ourselves in these doctrines and approved by them.

As individuals we tend to pay attention only to our preconceptions; this is what we were taught to do by culture, parents, teachers and peers. Working in industry for many years taught me this lesson well: So many times the reality of the workforce is overshadowed by the subjective preconceptions of management. Individuals or groups were tagged (good, indifferent, or undesirable) not so much by what they did or didn’t do rather they were tagged by the preconceived expectations of management and peers. Problem solving is an excellent example: not all of us problem solve the same way. But, often times, management’s expectation is that we problem solve to their liking, using only their skill set. And if you don’t conform to their preconceptions you’re chastised or out of a job. I’m reminded of the TV series “Survivors.” People got voted “off the island” by the subjective preconceptions of others, not by what they really did or didn’t do.

The human species is made up of many differing personalities, we all know this; one size does not fit all. Like a statistical bell-shaped curve, we all have differing aptitudes and skills, different approaches to problems solving, different likes, dislikes and points of view. We will never agree on everything and when preconceptions clash suffering results. What we, as a species, need to wake up to is that we need to grind our preconceptions under the millstone of wisdom which is brought about through collective and open dialog, not isolation. In a holistic sense, it boils down to: “wisdom comes from many advisors”; it takes all of us to make the planet work successfully and each of us has a niche to fill. Only through this wisdom can we hope to end human suffering…our own personal suffering.

Isolation can be a path to major psychic and social dysfunction. Why? Because our preconceptions define who and what we are both collectively and individually. And when preconceptions are left unchallenged they can bias behaviors in unhealthy, even pathological, ways. Through history we understand that it is necessary to challenge preconceptions, abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage being two major ones and it’s not over yet. And while these two extreme examples are horrid to the modern psyche, each of us must be challenged to examine our own preconceptions and how our preconceptions bring about our personal and collective suffering. I can think of three major preconceptions in our time, racial bias, religious bias, and political bias. Each preconception holds our souls hostage. While culture is our great protector, it is also our greatest jailor when left unchallenged.

So the challenge is this: due to a world pandemic we are forced to isolate from one-an-other. Yes, health issues force this upon us and we are wise to heed these precautions. But the very dangerous downside is that, in our forced isolation, we will individuate further into our negative preconceptions and increase human suffering even more, even at an alarming rate. Think back to the all the civil and religious wars throughout the history of our planet. Why do these things happen? Because in our preconceptions “they” are not like “us.” Einstein said that the proof of insanity is when we keep doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results. In other words, if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got, with no way out.

Yet it is also important to remember that our preconceptions around isolation are not universal in truth. Many of our greatest thinkers, scientists, philosophers, authors, artists, etc., accomplish their magnificent works during both voluntary and forced isolation. Isolation doesn’t always mean suffering; it depends upon the bent in one’s personality. The extreme introvert blooms in isolation while the extrovert generally wilts like a pansy in the hot relentless sun; there are many shades of gray between these two extremes.

But whatever the bent in our individual personalities, it behooves each of us to reach out in whatever way we can to stay connected in heartfelt and compassionate ways, be it social media, telephone conversation, e-mail, snail-mail, talking with our neighbors over the back fence at a distance, whatever. As individuals we need to help each other, because when we help each other we’re all winners. As individuals we also need to teach governments to talk to each other in civility and find common grounds for the common good; this includes environmental and climate issues as well. This planet works because of diversity! So sharing ideas is important; questioning ideas and core beliefs is of paramount importance! Don’t isolate too much…see history for what it has to teach. Like it or not, we’re all in this together; reciprocity is a key word herein.

There might be an upside to a global pandemic, “a challenge to be,” this is, we work together and put aside our preconceptions. Communicate openly and truthfully with each other wherever and whenever possible. If this happens we could have 1000 years of peace. It’s about staying connected in open and honest dialog, testing all our preconceptions in the face of adversity, and resisting too much isolation.


©John W. Worman, April 12, 2020