There seems to be two types of disconnect going on in today's world. As I've mentioned the world has become so interconnected in some ways that it's nearly impossible for us to do anything without someone else being involved. At the same time we may find ourselves disassociated from those people around us. It's not just the people either. The whole world around has become filtered in such a way that we've willingly disconnected various aspects for the sake of others. I've mentioned how the internet is full of information. There's so much of it that we create custom views of it, filtering out everything unwanted. We all do it. We pay attention only to what interests us. I've found myself going weeks or months without really knowing what's going on the in the world around me. Sure I could tell you about the latest video game developments or which movies are coming out, but I couldn't tell you why those people in Wisconsin were so upset or the impact of the natural disasters around the world. The ability to filter information means the potential for a complete disconnect goes up as time goes on.
Several years ago I moved to a new town for a job. I had never lived there before and only knew the person who recommended me for the job. The company had this policy that after six months of work you would be eligible to work from home one to two days a week. Since the position was a lot of talking on the phone with customers, it was the kind of work that could be done from really anywhere. When I heard about it I was very excited to get to the point where I could telecommute multiple days a week. The idea is great in theory. You save on time by not having to fight traffic either on the way to or from the office. You save money on the gas you would have used on that trip. There was the added benefit that it allowed you to create a better balance between your life and job so that you wouldn't feel shackled to your desk. It also could potentially save the company money on resources by not having an employee come into the office. Those are all good reasons to have a policy and as I said, in theory it's a very good idea all around.
Somewhere along the way the employees started to push past the two days and make it three days. There were even some people who lived far enough away that they were able to negotiate working from home permanently. This meant that in a given work week you would spend more time away from the office than you would spend in it. For many people this started off as a good thing. We each have our own lives to live. We have responsibilities and interests that go beyond what we do at our jobs. In fact for a lot of us our jobs are simply a means to generate income to support our life outside of work. For me it was a chance to keep people constantly at arm's length why maintaining the appearance of being a part of something. Now by the time they started going to three days a week I had been with the company for several years and had become established in what was once a new town. Even still I found myself drifting further away from people. It became easier to let myself be isolated by essentially hiding in my apartment. Now sure I still had to go into the office two days a week, but the way it worked out on the days that I came into the office others were spending their working from home. It got to the point that weeks could go by without really seeing certain people. There are some people who would love nothing more than to be on their own. They want to do their job and be left alone. Now these people may be personable outside of work, but it's such a slippery slope that disconnecting from one thing may trigger a disconnect from something else.
Our society is very individualistic, which in a lot of ways is a good thing. It has allowed certain people to achieve greatness because they are not hindered by the group. In other ways though it has created a society of trees, but not a forest. I once had to give a friend a ride to another friend's apartment. My friend made the comment that the apartment complex looked like honeycomb in a bee hive, which was an interesting analogy since he was saying it in the fact that each of us went into our little hole and was completely isolated from everyone, even the person next to us. It's true though that we maintain these invisible barriers around us. I lived in a single apartment complex for nearly six years and I couldn't tell you the name of any of the people who lived next door. Sure I had seen them coming and going. I'd said hi, but like them, I never went any further than that. Maybe a part of it is a fear of having someone so close to home that turns out to be unfriendly. So instead it's better to keep the people as an unknown quantity. From a strictly safety perspective I guess I can see its validity, but on the immediate flip side it meant you allowed yourself to be surrounded by strangers. In an emergency could you even ask the person standing next to you for help?
Even with all that self-imposed isolation from people we still find ourselves saying we need to disconnect for a little bit. We need time to be alone with ourselves or with only the people we really care about. It's not easy always being 'on' and having to maintain our outside persona. There are times when we need to just be ourselves. The version that doesn't have to be polite or considerate because we're alone. It also allows us to break away from the constant barrage of information that it coming at us. It's usually at this point that we put those filters back up. We reevaluate what we want in our lives and in some cases make a conscious effort to limit things even further. It's strange that for many of us the duration we can go outside in the world gets shorter and shorter even though we spend so much time trying to separate ourselves from everyone else. Maybe it's a perpetuating cycle, the more time we spend disconnected the easier it becomes to stay that way. If it stays that way then won't we all just be a bunch of strangers?
