Page 12 - WOTS 82

o love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall are. By masquerading false representations of ourselves, our
we shut our doors to love then and 'be safe'? That's interactions with others become quick and shallow, existing in a
the only alternative, really. But locking ourselves up closed-off emotional bubble where nothing meaningful comes in
“T and never facing another person won't fix what's or out. This is all done in hopes that it will somehow solve our
really going on in our souls.” ― Elisabeth Elliot loneliness, but only proves to drive us further apart and into
deeper despair. We are people in isolation. Limiting our
No one would have thought that our communities and countries interactions physically just made this isolation more apparent.
would ever be physically forced apart. Social distancing
guidelines have now disrupted the lives of millions of people. Our world is more technologically connected than ever before.
Everything seems to have been put on hold, and we are left with We can hold an entire conversation via text in the palm of our
an incredibly empty social calendar. And we feel it, don't we? hand. We can see what our former high school classmates are
Now a simple trip to the grocery store is viewed as a wonderful cooking for dinner on multiple social media feeds. We are
opportunity to interact with other humans. Suddenly, our constantly, overwhelmingly inundated with quick, shallow, so-
physical distance from other people correlates to how isolated called connections that leave no time for deep conversations
we have felt all along. that matter.

LIVING IN LONELINESS The fear of being "disconnected" ironically causes us to neglect
investing in the real-life relationships we do have. When was the
This phenomenon is nothing new. Many people have been last time you met someone for dinner or coffee and didn’t look
experiencing social distancing for quite some time. Not at your phone once? We desperately want to feel connected to
necessarily the type of social distancing that requires at least six people without making the investment and risk of actually doing
feet of physical space between ourselves, but the kind that puts so. We at least want to appear connected. This causes us to run
up different relational barriers like developing protective mask- from event to event, posting about our supposed grand
like personas to prevent people from knowing who we really adventures for people who don't care to see, thus perpetuating
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