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Pen Pals Should Make A Comeback — The Time’s Never Been Better
Loneliness is an epidemic that predates Covid by a longshot, and it’ll outlast it, too. To outsmart it, we need to get creative.
There was a time when loneliness was a rare condition for a human being to find themselves in. For most of human history, our species has lamented the opposite of loneliness — escaping one’s fellow man was a luxury, and solitude was considered a thing of great beauty.
Humans are a social species. We are gregarious by nature, and this has been an accepted fact in every tribe and society the world over.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
In days past, people lived close together by default. It was simply necessary for survival that one share their home, their territory, and their resources with a larger group. Later, when people were able to spread out and live more independent lives, they still spent most of their time among others.
When they were divided, they wrote letters to one another — even if they were worlds apart, and even if those letters could take months to arrive. It was the simple act of reaching out and seeking a connection that mattered. This is who we are.
