Are We Becoming Less Able to Connect to Other People?

Here is something I am concerned about. . . Are we citizens of the United States of America gradually as a society becoming more and more self-enclosed as individuals, each of us in our own little hermetically sealed worlds? Are we becoming less able on a person-to-person level to "connect" on a deep level with our fellow human beings?

Sadly, I suspect we are.

I hope I am wrong about this, but in my observation, younger adults today seem less capable of truly opening themselves up to the inner personal worlds of other people than perhaps was the case, say, 20 years ago. I don't mean a mere superficial connection, but something deeper and more significant.

Now, I suspect that this has always been a weakness of American society. But, nonetheless, I think it may be getting worse.

Why do today's teens and twentysomething adults seem to be so solipsistic in the way they travel the journey of life? Well, in part (I wouldn't claim to have anything like a full answer to this), perhaps it has to do with how today's American culture is such that it provides the conditions in which a young person's life can very easily be extremely self-centered and excessively self-involved.

Think about it. We can now control almost every waking moment of the day to a remarkably large degree so that we are constantly bathed in a universe of our own personal preferences. If we want to live this way, seldom do we have to endure moments not filled with some sort of pleasurable diversion of our own choosing. And it is largely technology that has made this possible. Computers and the internet, cell phones, mp3 players, video games, etc., are changing some of us into persons who do not know what it is like not to have idle moments always accompanied by our favorite music, favorite games, internet surfing, messaging, etc. We are seemingly masters of our own interior worlds. In other words, our inner experience of life as human persons is more and more filled with self--with being able to please our desires in some way during large stretches of our days. Our lives are like private movies accompanied by sound tracks of our own personal choosing.

So, we go through the day listening to music or radio, texting, surfing, or watching our favorite TV shows (which we record on DVR so we can watch them exactly when most convenient), etc. Ironically, we are often around other people, but we have no significant human connection with them. We are protagonists in a one-man show. The people physically near us for so much of our day might as well be on another continent. We rarely open a space for others to "break-in" to the carefully self-controlled sound track of our personal lives.

We have ready access to amazing technology that enables easy person-to-person communication. But it seems, as we are more "wired" electronically and thus able to text a friend any time of day no matter where he is on the planet, we are more and more distant from the human beings around us. We are islands, or ships, moving on long ocean voyages, crossing paths, but each ship is going to its own private destination.

I believe we are becoming as a society even less able than in the past--especially young people--to have truly significant and meaningful interpersonal connections with other persons. We may relate to many people in a day, but it is often very shallow, insignificant, detached. If we do communicate to people we care about and have more significant relationships with, it is frequently in a manner that we control--when we want and in the manner we want.

Are we (especially young Americans) losing the so-important human ability to "connect" to other human beings on a genuinely heart-to-heart level?

Because we can keep ourselves so amused and occupied by a running soundtrack of our choosing, I fear we can only dimly recognize the incredible depths of meaning and power of interpersonal relations of which the human person is capable. We think the high degree of control over our immediate conscious environment gives us great freedom. But do we consider that in reality, this is making us less human, less persons who can relate to others on a real and profound level, and more like automatons? Can we, any more, grasp the value and nuance of the authentic interior world of another human person? Can we truly connect heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit? Do we notice when we are merely talking at others or tuning them out, paying more attention to an ongoing effort to constantly satisfy our own interior desires to be entertained and pleasantly diverted?

We should be on guard for the person-diminishing scourge of solipsism and ask ourselves, do we really listen to others, do we really want to know them, do we want to serve others more than ourselves? And it should, as so often, be clear that we must be always begging our Savior for the many graces we need to turn away from a life of self-enclosure and instead open the door of our hearts to others. Let us try to diminish our preoccupation with tweaking the soundtracks for our own lives and permit other persons the opportunity to play songs of their choosing on the stage of our souls.

Thoughts about music from conductors [3]

This is part 3 of the series I began here with part 1 and here with part 2 . . . .

A third conductor Hilary Hahn interviewed was Grant Cooper. She asked him,

HH: What kept you with it?

GC: I think that comes back to communication. I really find that we musicians communicate on so many different levels (one-on-one, in larger ensembles with other musicians, with the public, etc.) and in so many different ways: unspoken, mysteriously even, and through shared experiences.

Two points to be drawn from this:

1. There are at least three different levels of communication that a musician might experience while performing. First, if there are only two musicians, communicating with only one other artist. Second, if there are more than two musicians, communicating with a collective of other artists (which is different than interacting with only one). And third, communicating with the audience. Each level of communication goes in both directions. Note, only two of these levels may take place simultaneously (for the first and second cannot happen together by definition).

2. There are a variety of ways in which interactions among fellow performers and between performers and audience happen. Many are non-verbal, mysterious, spiritual, subtle and yet powerful, deeply human, almost telepathic. It is almost as though one were wordlessly passing momentary impressions and emotions back-and-forth to each other, one heart directly to another. As the feeling is passed and becomes shared it gains additional qualities. A poignant and deeply human moment is first privately alive in one's self, then comes to life among a communion of persons. These "moments" happen briefly, like a succession of waves rushing upon a beach. Some are small and delicate, others large and strong. And when things are going especially well and the muse of music visits, there is a sense within those who are most plugged-in to the shared experience that they are somehow, both "in time" and "beyond time."

I think it may be the case that the above points apply more to music than to other art forms. For music, uniquely, is a living art form. It moves dynamically through time, even though it can be represented statically in the form of ink on paper. Music is not fully itself unless being performed. And as it is performed, it is alive. Like a human life, it cannot be captured in or reduced to a single point in time.

By sharing the reality of a musical performance we are given a means to experience communion with each other in a way that is both meaningful and unique; and hopefully it may also be revelatory, insight-bestowing, and wisdom-enriching--in a word, humanizing.

[For more on similar themes see my comments and the videos of Hilary Hahn in two earlier posts here and here.]

Hilary Hahn video II; Music, "Communicates . . ."

Here is Hilary Hahn during a recording session in London. You can get an idea of her talent here. The clip starts with an interesting brief commentary by Hilary about what she strives to do in making a recording. Her last remark points to that quality of music as communicating, . . . something (ineffable).

The proper British narrator sounds to me like someone from the 1950's and is somewhat amusing. But he doesn't speak for long, and then you can listen and watch Hilary play the violin. Extraordinary. It's also interesting to see a recording being made of such cultured music and the solo musician is wearing jeans. A sign of our times (I don't mind this; however, I think it is interesting as I doubt we would have seen classical musicians in jeans 40 or 50 years ago in a recording session). I wonder if the "gentleman" conductor (as the narrator points out) approved! But that's not very important. I post this clip for Hilary's comment and for her musicianship. Enjoy.