Missing Human

Where have conversations gone? Where are the conversation rooms of bygone ages, the conservatories, drawing rooms, parlours, music rooms and salons.

Today we have chat rooms, but they are very far removed from the chat rooms of the past. Chat rooms don't require you to sit opposite the person you're chatting to. In fact you don't have to be indoors or in a room at all. You can be on a separate continent and you don't have to use your vocal chords either. All that is required is the use of a few fingers and half a mind, whilst the other half multi-tasks on a variety of other activities like shopping, attending to business, helping a child with his homework and so on. Basically we can chat whilst we go about our day-to-day activities.

I saw the movie 'Disconnect' yesterday and it goes for the jugular with regards to the demise of communication and the human condition.

We have teenagers on ipads at the dinner table. We have adults at restaurants lining up their cell phones almost as a competition to see whose will ring first. We have executives, domestics, scholars and homemakers alike answering calls whilst they're busy doing something else. We attend lectures whilst churning out replies to e-mails on laptops, apple macs and iphones. We watch TV whilst Whatsapping, tweeting and texting.

The world is such a mumbo-jumbo, multi-tasking, fast-paced place these days. I don't know about you, but I certainly battle to stay focused in the present whilst having a conversation. There is always a tweet that seems to vie for my attention and it is not of the feathered variety.

Have you noticed that business partners, clients, corporates, even friends and relatives have little respect for meal times, public holidays or weekends anymore? Gone are the days of observed times of silence around meal times and bedtime and lie-ins on weekends. It seems that we humans are being fed a continuous stream of data and information, a steady and rude invasion of our senses, but have we become better communicators? NO.

There is a constant filtering of communication through us, but somehow it has become so constant, so invasive and demanding that we don't give it our full attention. We can't. We are bombarded with sense numbing information overload.

Well, perhaps I am speaking for myself here, but I have to confess that I battle to narrow my focus down to a single solitary conversation. Many of my communications are severely lacking. They lack focus and presence.

And do you want to know why? Because I am missing the knee-to-knee, face-to-face, eye-to-eye connect. It seems virtually impossible to focus on one person because of all the external stimuli. With all the distractions, I battle to read all the elements when I'm communicating. I miss the subtle nuances of body language, the sadness behind the angry words spoken in haste. I notice that we often don't hold eye contact when we speak to one another. We scarcely touch. We hardly ever engage without the intrusion of all the techno gadgetry.

And we wonder why in this technologically advanced age we have the highest rate of suicide, depression, loneliness and sadness.

We, humanity are missing each other. We are missing the simple basic need for human touch, for human caring and for a gentle, compassionate ear. We, humanity, are missing in action. We have become like robots, driven by the information that is passing through us.

Isn't it time to meet a friend without a phone, without a camera or any digital device; just to see her, just to hear her, just to be?

I am setting a new intention of connecting with the people in my midst. I want some real eyeball-to-eyeball connections this week. I want to discover what's missing in my conversations. I want the human with the information, not some call centre recording.

Let's get the human back into our communications this week

lots of love
Nicolette