In traffic, I see nervousness. On the street, a sense of detachment. In grocery stores, impatience. In cafés and restaurants, people sit together yet act as if they’re not.
Eyes are fixed on screens. Conversations have become brief and empty. A smile is a rarity, and ordinary kindness is almost a surprise. It’s as if we’ve stopped noticing one another. People see the human in others less and less often. More often, they see a nuisance, an obstacle, a competitor, or someone who’s wasting their time.
On the road we’re rivals. At work we’re tools. Online we’re an audience. In life we’re passersby. We’ve never had more ways to connect, yet we may never have been farther apart. We have more contacts, more messages, more channels, yet fewer and fewer real conversations.
There are more and more photos of smiles, but less and less genuine joy. There is a growing need to be seen, but less and less willingness to notice the person next to us.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy isn’t that we’ve grown distant from one another.
The greatest tragedy is that we’ve grown accustomed to this distance.
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