In defense of feeling
Absence of romantic love in my life had created its own awkward space in me. Like a corner of a room you cannot find a comfortable use for, a deficient space grasping for its own utility. And I sense other people can see this and that it makes them uncomfortable. They seek to solve it (‘get on the dating apps!’) or to refute romance as goal (‘I wis
... See moreAmy Key • Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Love and Making a Life
So much of the pain of loneliness is to do with concealment, with feeling compelled to hide vulnerability, to tuck ugliness away, to cover up scars as if they are literally repulsive. But why hide? What's so shameful about wanting, about desire, about having failed to achieve satisfaction, about experiencing unhappiness? Why this need to constantl
... See moreOlivia Laing • The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Heroic individualism’s incessant drive to be “productive,” “optimized,” and “efficient” often crowds out time and energy otherwise spent forging close bonds, both to other people and to traditions, crafts, and lineages that provide a sense of belonging.
Brad Stulberg • The Practice of Groundedness
Myself and people my age have been trained under the illusion that we can effectively eliminate any and all friction from our lives. We can work from home, Amazon prime everything we need, swipe through a limitless array of mediocre dates, text our therapist, and have a person go to the grocery store for us when we don’t feel like it, all while con... See more
Rosie Spinks • The Friendship Problem
“Hyper-individualism turns feelings of low self-esteem and difficulty finding romance into a personal responsibility: if it’s a personal responsibility for you to learn to love yourself, then society is now off the hook,” they say. The solution, of course, is not to strive toward true codependency but interdependency, something disability justice a... See more
i-D • Unpacking our generational fear of codependency
Loneliness isn’t just making us unhappy, it’s silently killing us: Social isolation is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. If the situation is so critical, why aren’t we doing more to fix it? Because we’ve been collectively ashamed to talk about loneliness . Our silence has incubated one of the most insidious crises our society has to face. ... See more