Look up

I hate lonely.

I remember saying that statement to my 20s-30s Sunday School class and getting nods from around the room. Lonely has reached epidemic proportions and is unnecessarily destroying lives, figuratively and literally.

And I hate it.

I hate it because, like all negative emotions/actions/behaviors, it’s based in fear. The fear of not being accepted is bigger than the desire to connect. Lonely seems like the safest option, when really it’s the most dangerous.

I was invited to speak to a class at UFC last week. (Shout out to Ms. Boman’s 4:30 Digital Marketing Class: Africa, Jessica, Eric, Pedro, Lindsay, Emily, Amanda, Mateo, Amanda, Jennifer, Valerie, Ashley, Jane, Brennan, Om Dabhi, Louise, Renan, Morgan, Evan, Alison, Camille, Adrianna, Xevia, Nelson, Melanie, Franki, Jason, Valeria, Zoe, Amber, Dawaynna, Devin, Madison, Hayley, Patrick, Rachel, Savannah, Julie, Justin, Hannah, Victoria, Colette, Tyler, Stephanie, Michael, Cameron, Savannah, Adam, Celina, Mike, Jason, Aaron, Katherine, Cristian, Giovanni, Sherley, Jose, Carlos, Juliana, Alena, Zachary, Thao, Gunnar, Kayla, Patrick, Jelle, Alissa, Olivia, Brittany and Michael. Loved spending time with you guys! And some of you turds owe me an email reply. You know who you are!)

I wore my speaker outfit: black pants, plainish top and pink high heels. And that outfit works GREAT for standing in front of a group of people giving a talk.

What that outfit, specifically the SHOES are not great for is parking in a parking garage and walking several blocks to get to your speaking location. I was NOT in the college campus mindset. Needless to say, I WILL be wearing my Converse next time.

On the walk back, I completely gave up on my shoes and walked barefoot around the campus trying to remember which garage I parked in. There’s a covered kind of bus stop where the tram picks up people and moves them around campus. As I was walking up, I looked at what was before me and was… shook. (Did I use that right?)

There were probably 20-25 students standing under the shade waiting for the next tram and it was dead silent. Everybody’s faces looking down at phones, completely oblivious to the other human beings around them. I excuse-me’d through the crowd, no one even looked up. Most didn’t even move, so I had to accidentally bump into a few of them. (Whoops! Heh-heh.)

We can’t stand to be bored while we wait for ANYTHING EVER, so we medicate with our phone.

We can’t stand the creeping anxiety, so we distract ourselves with our phone.

And the loneliness is almost more than we can bear, so desperately try to reach through our screens trying to connect while staying protected by our little glowing shield that promises ‘safety,’ but at a price.

We’ll pick fights on Facebook and Instagram because at least people care enough about us to insult us. Emojis and ‘likes’ replace real face-to-face interaction. And when we finally pry ourselves away from them at night to go to bed, we find ourselves still very much alone.

Caroline decided she was ready to listen to the Les Mis soundtrack on our roadtrips back and forth to Okahumpka to meet her dad on his weekends. She asked me to talk her through the story as we listened to each song. (I never realized how complicated it all was until I tried to explain it.)

Remember how it starts?

Jean Valjean is a prisoner, doing hard labor for stealing food for his sister and her child. Prisoners are singing, commiserating as they work. The name of the opening song is Look Down:

Look down, look down
Don’t look ’em in the eye
Look down, look down
You’re here until you die

I heard the haunting melody and those dark and hopeless words for the millionth time and was suddenly presented with a new image: The college students waiting for the bus: Look down, avoid eye contact, you’re just… here. Until you die, that is. No connections. An inconsequential existence. Your life reduced to just another online presence.

And who was singing it? Prisoners.

Prisoners of our own devices, if you will.

I know you’ve seen it:

A family sitting around the living room together, TV on, everybody looking at their phones.

Even worse, everyone isolated in their own rooms, Snapchatting, texting, playing Two Dots (guilty).

Waiting in line at Publix.

It’s all a Bandaid on a bullet hole.

We’re never quite alone enough to reach out for real human connection. Our screens scratch the itch, so the deep loneliness continues to plague us.

 

I have a crazy idea:

What would happen if someone looked up? What would they see?

Again, at this point it would be so small feat to put our phone in our pocket and trust that the world will keep turning.

But what if it did? What if we looked up?

We may see someone else looking up and smile at them.

We may strike up a conversation while waiting in line.

We might see facial expressions and body language that communicate more than words.

We may let ourselves see a sunset, a rainbow or some other beauty in nature without putting a screen between us to capture it for Instagram.

We may go to a concert and hear an amazing artist sing one of our favorite songs without feeling the pressure to record it.

We may see other lonely people. And maybe, just maybe, we’d able to connect.

This post is a little more life-coachy than devotional. But I believe ‘the life that is truly life’ that Paul talks about in 1 Timothy HAS to be more than looking down all day.

Let’s challenge ourselves. To be totally present. We don’t have to be prisoners living in a virtual reality world.

We can look up.