After eight months of social distance, I think isolation is getting to me. It was not like that in the beginning, early March, when The Star staff for the most part began working from home, and outside obligations dropped off to none. I enjoyed the break then; now I am not so sure, if my general and abundant crankiness is an indicator.
Whether in the workplace or getting together with friends, it now is obvious that even if I had thought myself to be generally fine alone, casual interactions were, at lizard-brain level, important.
Well, I am not so sure that reptiles are sociable, but pretty much everything else with a spinal cord is. The dogs sleep in a heap when I am not around, and when I stretch out at night, the largest one, a lab mix, is right behind to snug down at my feet.
Science recently stepped in with studies on how social cues may work in the brain. So-called mirror neurons may provide a pathway to infer the mental states of others, including from visual sources. How humans and other higher primates feel empathy is an age-old mystery — mirror neurons are thought to play a part.
Whether or not these cells are the mechanism by which we can “feel” another person’s tension from across a room, from our own individual experience we all know that there is something there. Masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus probably also prevent the sharing of social cues. Pile onto that justified paranoiac retreat into our own bubbles, and the isolation may become too much over time.
Loneliness is linked to illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke by about a third, and social isolation increases premature death from all causes at a rate similar to smoking, obesity, and lack of physical activity.
With cold weather here and with it a frightening second wave of infection, keeping up human connections is difficult. My thought is to bundle up, call a friend, and head down to the beach with cups of coffee; socially distant is better than the alternative and its effects. I just wish I had realized this sooner.