Acts Towards Others

Social isolation is uncomfortable to talk about. I know that from experience. Here are steps I am taking towards other people.

My friend Sandra (who I have mentioned in this blog before) is one amazing woman. I met her, sort of random, in an elevator in Miami in a parks conference. She was curious and bubbly, wearing a Dodgers baseball cap. A few weeks later, my then boss Amanda suggested that I should meet her friend Sandra when I am in Los Angeles. This just who she is. I mean she calls herself a pollinator.

We got together under a parasol at Nice Coffee downtown Los Angeles opposite to our favorite Angeleno landmark: the Central Library. We chatted about growing up, why we do what we do and our commitment to public life. She quickly became a dear friend. Over the last two years, as I am trying to find my place in this megacity, she has been extraordinarily generous in inviting me to luncheons, street parties and art premieres.

Over the last year, our friendship turned news headlines into lived reality. I have witnessed through her journey how grief and joy can coexist as she has copes with the loss of her home in the Palisades fires. Rather than giving advice or cheer up, I have tried to listen and communicate that any mood is OK.

When we plan to get together, I follow her lead. She can usually enlighten our hangs with stories of the restaurant, cafe or the neighborhood. Just before the holidays we met for a drink at Beethoven Market, a neighborhood jewel in Mar Vista. In a truly Sandra style, she was there early and had managed to cozy up a guy and talked her way into us having seats at the bar. Over cocktails, salad and pizza, we celebrated recent successes, gave each other reading tips and movies to see and exchanged holiday gifts. But we also talked about loss and joy.

We both easily come across as enthusiastic extroverts. As we sat at the bar, Sandra told me that she is actually very protective of her time and needs a lot of alone time. The warmth and intimacy of the conversation allowed me to share something I have shared only with very few people:

Over the last few years, I have at times felt incredibly lonely and isolated.

Her reaction was priceless. She said she had not realized, asked a few follow-up questions and then said:”You’re wonderful and I am going to keep introducing you to people.”

I have a lot of wonderful people in my life. But it is not difficult for me to diagnose my “condition”. I mean, I basically have built my entire consultancy around social connection and isolation. Here are the doctor’s notes:

The patient has moved to a new country, and within it to two different cities. He currently lives in a megacity where the default is to move around in your own car. The patient tells that most of his friends are ten timezones and an 11-hour flight away. His immigration status is uncertain, which complicated long-term commitments. The patient explains that as a budding entrepreneur, he has been working a lot to build projects and relationships. His days are filled with on average six daily Zoom calls, often at odd hours and mostly from his home. His team members live in different parts of the country. His frequent work travel (around 150 travel days a year) complicates committing to weekly hobbies or volunteering. The patient goes to the gym several times a week but has his AirPods on. He does not have a dog or children that would ease sociability. He claims he does not enjoy team sports. While feeling at times lonely and isolated, the patient has a loving marriage and can list numerous experiences from the last week’s when he has felt joy, belonging and purpose.

The holiday came at a perfect time. It gave me some time to think. I went back and forth whether to write about this. Like is it wise from a business perspective for me as a social connection consultant to confess that I have not excelled this? Or even worse: is this too navel-gazing? Or with everything going on, are my issues really issues?

Eventually I concluded that recognizing that I am an alien in a new-ish country who is not alien to these trends and feelings is valuable. I hope it generates empathy and caution in me and others against condescending and victimizing narratives around loneliness so that we refrain from designing for and speaking about ‘them’ rather than design for and speak about ‘us’. While I experience waves of isolation, I also experience waves of extraordinary connection with people. I am not looking for someone to save me or ask for pity but just recognizing that we live in times where it takes more effort not to become lonely or antisocial.

Professionally, naming and sharing these sentiments has helped me articulate articulate the difference between loneliness and solitude. I am making notes about times when I want to be and when I don’t want to be around people or when I cancel plans. Mostly, I love being by myself and need it. Being by myself, like reading or writing at the library or in a cafe, is wonderful. But loneliness or isolation is different. It is involuntary.

Public life, the things I work on, can promote or prevent loneliness and isolation. As Francesca Specter pointed out in The New York Times, some spaces are better than others for being by yourself but not feeling alone:

“Public spaces designed to increase opportunities for social interaction may have the unintended consequence of making isolated people feel marginalized, whereas spaces that support solitary experiences in the midst of a crowd may encourage a feeling of belonging.”

Acts Towards Others

While I am usually not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions, here are things I decided to act on in order to turn towards other people and reduce involuntary isolation. Like all things in being human, I am a messy work in progress.

1. Hide Self-View on Zoom
   This might seem like an odd one to start with. But I do think it is worth pausing for a moment on the fact that it is not natural for us to look at ourselves when we are in interaction with others.
   
   I recently clicked the three dots on top of my Zoom window and chose ‘Hide Self-View’. This means that my own image disappears when other people show up. While I still do check that my hair is not a mess and the lighting is sort of OK before joining a call, hiding my own video input makes the calls feel more like a normal conversation. I find it easier to focus on the other person and think far less about myself.
   

2. Keep journaling
   Christine Rosen writes in her new new book The Extinction of Experience how writing by hand slows down thinking.
   
   I have been journaling by hand as a daily practice since August 2012. I have learned how writing things down allows you to park them, sleep better and cope with the fact that some days are better than others. In the end of last year, I started slipping on this routine, going weeks without writing. But I am getting back on the horse. I remind myself of the brilliant advice by Oliver Burkeman in Meditations for Mortals: it is more important to do things dailyish than beat yourself over not succeeding every day.
   

3. Become a regular at the library and a coffee shop
   While I often say that I live in Los Angeles, more specifically I live in Santa Monica, a city of 90,000 residents on the beach. I have the benefit of using several library systems in the metropolitan area. Santa Monica has great libraries but so does the City of Los Angeles and smaller cities, like West Hollywood. Most of my meetings are done by noon and my afternoons are usually spent writing or editing. My goal this year is to go more often to libraries and coffee shops, not put my AirPods on and be around people. I love watching people.
   

4. End 5 AM mornings and go for hikes or a class
   California is very far from Europe. This means that if I want to meet people during normal office hours, especially those in Eastern European time zone, I have had to get up at 4:15 AM to be somewhat coherent on a call at 5 AM. I have been the crazy-looking person in my neighborhood walking around right after 4 AM talking to myself in Finnish to open my voice. I have realized that even if I try to take a mid-morning nap, it does make me a sort of a grouchy zombie by 2 PM, which is when I could get together with people in person. While there will still be exceptions, 5 AM cannot be a weekly routine if I live where I live. And if I in any case start early, I can end my work day at the same time as East Coast leaves the office and go for a hike or to a gym class.
   

5. Volunteer
   The other six are already in motion but this is is the one I am still working on. I want to find an opportunity to volunteer that requires in-person engagement, that is not directly linked to my work and allows me to meet new people. When we moved here, I signed up for 826LA and had a really positive experience guiding kids in writing.

Again, maybe time to get back on the horse.