Disconnecting to Stay Connected

There were three of us in the dentist’s waiting room recently. I noted that none of us had a phone out, nor were we leafing through one of the magazines that have made a post-pandemic reappearance in waiting rooms. We were just sitting in silence with whatever was going on in our heads. The occurrence interested me, along with the fact that I noticed. But, then, what else was there to do? When we’re not looking at our phones, we’re paying attention to other things.

A couple of days after the dentist visit, while driving to the Olympic Peninsula to walk in the rainforest, I started a new audiobook, This One Wild and Precious Life: The Path Back to Connection in a Fractured World, by Australian author Sarah Wilson, published in 2020. The first chapter is about aloneness and the second about our addiction to scrolling social media, reading the news, checking the weather forecast (again) on our always-present phones whenever we find ourselves in a scary moment of stillness. Wilson relates a story about a woman in a cafe on a holiday in Slovenia, just sitting there, for 45 minutes. No phone, no book, just staring into space with a pleasant look on her face. Wilson finally asked her what she was doing (“if you don’t mind my asking”). The woman smiled and said “on special days like this I like to sit and think nothing.” Wilson goes on to talk about our culture of over-stimulation, of not being able to be alone with ourselves and our own thoughts, of failing to meaningfully connect with others, of continually succumbing to a fear of missing out. Sociologists and psychologists are calling it “moral loneliness.”

In our disconnect from aloneness, we have become dehumanized.
—Sarah Wilson

I am physically alone most of the time, but it’s only when I’m hiking that I’m disconnected, putting my phone in airplane mode to save the battery for camera use (usually there is no signal anyway). All my best thoughts come on the trail—listening to bird song, water flowing, the breeze in the trees, examining flowers and fungi—as I reconnect with myself. It’s easy to disconnect from non-native sound on the trail (especially if you hike alone and without earbuds), but I’m on a mission to disconnect more from visual “noise” as a discipline at home.

Wilson muses that after a period of aloneness, we are more able to meaningfully connect. Introverts know this. But what about the unpeopled stimulation of screens, I’m wondering now? Does it make it harder to connect when we are around people because we’ve not really had our needed alone time? Do we then stay cocooned even out in the world? Do our phones and social media take the place of real connection? I’ve mentioned here before that I prefer self-checkout lines, but I am working to eschew them at least some of the time, in preference for IRL (in real life) connection. I’m looking for opportunities elsewhere as well.

Last week, walking on a sidewalk, another pedestrian and I came shoulder-to-shoulder when we moved to the side for those coming toward us. I would have spaced back out when the way cleared and gone on as before, without a word, but the man (half my age) turned his head toward me and exclaimed, “Cool glasses!” That started a conversation that continued for a moment even when we stopped to go different directions. It was a brief connection with a stranger, someone not of my sex, age, or skin color. It made me happy. I walked on with a warm feeling bubbling up. I want to feel that more!

I’ve been exploring little acts of resistance to what’s happening in the country, beyond politically. Connecting with strangers is surely one. My mother—who was an introvert with well-honed extrovert skills—was good at it, smiling at restaurant patrons, even though she couldn’t really see them, and speaking to strangers. Tomorrow (the 21st) is the seventh anniversary of her death. (She loved trillium, by the way, a flower that knows how to shine either as solitary plants or in community.) It seems like a good time to renew my challenge not only to notice other people but to find something about a stranger to comment on. And to stop the damn scrolling.

Facebook is my only social media. I’ve decided I don’t want to get off it completely because it is some connection to far away friends, and friends I’ll never meet—in fact, only know because of social media. It’s an event information source. It’s a way to get my writing into the world. But I want to use it better, i.e. not as a time suck. I’ve moved the link on my phone to the fourth screen and put it in a folder. It’s no longer screaming at me to open it. It’s really working! Wilson suggests that having to find it is a trigger to your brain to do something else, to sit through the discomfort of nothing to do. To watch yourself being “bored” and ride it out. What else can I notice while waiting at a train crossing? When I was a child, my father and I looked for “built” dates on the cars. Now I think about what’s in the containers and the people who produced it and loaded it.

I’m discerning my responses to many things. Staying informed, but disconnecting when it threatens overwhelm. Staying connected to beauty. Refusing to spiral into fear and depression. Holding to hope with a firm grip. Choosing what I put into the world. Looking for new ways to be an activist, even when it’s beyond my comfort zone. I’m claiming connections with people as a form of activism. And I fail again and again. And then I begin anew.

Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
—Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.

🌦 🌦 🌦

What are your thoughts about disconnection and connection, and aloneness? How are you caring for yourself these days? Leave a comment below!

Coming soon! Audiobook Pub Day

May 13, 2025

The audio version of Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver will be released by Tantor Media on May 13, Mother’s Day week! It’s available for pre-order wherever you purchase audiobooks. Listen to a sample here.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Audiobooks.com, Audible

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