Can loneliness actually bring us closer to one another?

At an unprecedented rate, loneliness is moving around the globe-from self-isolating technology and political division to community decay and social fragmentation-and yet it is not a feeling to which we readily admit. It is stigmatized, freighted with shame and fear, and easy to dismiss as mere emotional neediness. But what if instead of shying away from loneliness, we embraced it as something we can learn from and as something that will draw us closer to one another?
In This Exquisite Loneliness, Richard Deming turns an eye toward that unwelcome feeling, both in his own experiences and the lives of six groundbreaking figures, to find the context of loneliness and to see what some people have done to navigate this profound sense of discomfort. Within the back stories to Melanie Klein’s contributions to psychoanalysis, Zora Neale Hurston’s literary and ethnographic writing, the philosophical essays of Walter Benjamin, Walker Evans’s photography of urban alienation, Egon Schiele’s revolutionary artwork and Rod Serling’s uncanny narratives in The Twilight Zone, Deming explores how loneliness has served as fuel for an intense creative desire that has forged some of the most original and innovative art and writing of the twentieth century.
This singular meditation on loneliness reveals how we might transform the pain of emotional isolation and become more connected to others and more at home with our often unquiet selves.
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[@judykinsman3258]

Are we just training people to be lonely instead of being alone being ok? I’m 77 & am still trying to understand why people think it’s natural to be lonely if one’s alone. I disagree.

[@CH-gc8hf]

I'm happy to break it to you Katie (from a proud deplorable) but the only way you're going to change Maga's mindset is in your dreams. Sweet dreams Katie!

[@evamurray4229]

What does your comment have to do with this issue?

[@christinecamley]

Who is this individual? I have researched loneliness for 20 years. Evidence-based research makes clear how dangerous loneliness is. Depression and loneliness are different but they impact each other enormously. Social media doesn't bring real relationships and in-person contact is critical. I kind of find this person a bit frustrating to listen to in talking about loneliness. So much more could be said in a much better way. This format where someone just goes on and on isn't as interesting as an interview. I feel like he is leaving a lot out. Perhaps he had a limited time to speak.

[@janohare916]

Richard Deming, apparently a writer and poet, says the description and google.

[@cynthiakammann7368]

What a supremely stupid question.

[@lifeS458]

I think money in the United States has a lock to do with the problem of depression and loneliness. And I'm gonna tell you why there was a time in my own personal life that I had the opportunity to actually get paid like a should of got a long time ago friar. So for you to clearly understand that feeling in that time. And that moment took all loneliest the depression away, so get down to the nitty gritty of the dollar bill in the United States. And you'll get down to the ignorance of how y'all transfer to something else

[@stevegreene9312]

Katie really is lonely, she's deplorable

[@danoalex2977]

Katie is woke, the woke serves the 👺👹👺👹

[@evamurray4229]

What is your point? Can you actually define "woke"?

[@danoalex2977]

@@evamurray4229 What is your point POS

[@danoalex2977]

@@evamurray4229 adolfs wife was named Eva 🤣