I am starting to think that basic socialization is crucial for mental health

[Michael569]

@Something Funny after 30, i find it requires a bit more effort because people get busy but it helps to have some people you have common interest with. It can be colleagues or high school mates but also you could consider discovering new people, things like sports clubs (volleyball clubs, football, dance classes , running clubs, outdoor exercise clubs or places like CrossFit classes etc. if you ended up doing some low key competing those places are good for socialisation and bonding 

You also have hobbist clubs like D&D and board game types of venues, crafting hobbies, book clubs ..

Then there are meetups for single people in most major cities which are often dating oriented but not necessarily just that.

There are websites that connect people with common interests..my wife found her best girlfriend like that 

I mean...try asking GPT for some creative options but it all starts with wanting to make an effort, it won't come to you while you're chilling at home 🙂

@Schizophonia yeah plenty of older people with bad social skills but those who didn't grow up around social media naturally do a bit better.

It's not just sexual intimacy, humans developed around each other and for most of our existence we lived in proximity to others, engaging in group duties z sharing labour, sharing meals with the group, even if just the closest family. Now its like we are even afraid to say Hi to people less so to talk or sit next to one another on a train. 

No, Internet socialisation isn't the same. People are fake, shallow, transactional and quite rude to each other. We can't see each other's body language, subtle facial signals, postural changes..it is something but it's not enough. Personal socialisation brings people closer together than any virtual ever could.

Especially now with AI....I've spoken to a few people around here after speaking to them virtually and you see how much people are pretending... sometimes I'm thinking like "is someone writing all your comments"? The disparity between the virtual and real life presence is almost staggering 

It is what the world is right now but it partially explains rise of depression and anger among young men. It's not the only factor of course, there is much more to it.

 

[Schizophonia]

35 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

 

@Schizophonia yeah plenty of older people with bad social skills but those who didn't grow up around social media naturally do a bit better.

It's not just sexual intimacy, humans developed around each other and for most of our existence we lived in proximity to others, engaging in group duties z sharing labour, sharing meals with the group, even if just the closest family. Now its like we are even afraid to say Hi to people less so to talk or sit next to one another on a train. 

No, Internet socialisation isn't the same. People are fake, shallow, transactional and quite rude to each other. We can't see each other's body language, subtle facial signals, postural changes..it is something but it's not enough. Personal socialisation brings people closer together than any virtual ever could.

Especially now with AI....I've spoken to a few people around here after speaking to them virtually and you see how much people are pretending... sometimes I'm thinking like "is someone writing all your comments"? The disparity between the virtual and real life presence is almost staggering 

It is what the world is right now but it partially explains rise of depression and anger among young men. It's not the only factor of course, there is much more to it.

 

You're right, many people don't socialize enough and we're not the same irl as we are online; I myself am systematically calmer and simpler in real life.
But I don't want to be too dramatic, I see that most peopl are starting to become aware of this problem.

 What I wanted to say is that despite the problem of loneliness, I also see a "drying up" of certain karma which is in fact much more serious over the generations. I don't know if it was the world war or something like that that caused an "energy whiplash", but here in the boomer generation and generation x there are a lot of extremely mentally ill people; A lot of rape, humiliation, or physical violence in any context. Everyone in France knows someone who was raised with joyful like "you're good for nothing, you'll end up under the bridges".

Modern generations often seem more mature and stable, and there are also fewer problems with alcoholism, smoking and drug addiction in general.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

3 hours ago, Emerald said:

I could afford to have the belief because my solitude was an illusion

Same, I experienced this with living with my family + going to the gym. Really can't be ignored.

[Michael569]

2 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

What I wanted to say is that despite the problem of loneliness, I also see a "drying up" of certain karma which is in fact much more serious over the generations. I don't know if it was the world war or something like that that caused an "energy whiplash", but here in the boomer generation and generation x there are a lot of extremely mentally ill people; A lot of rape, humiliation, or physical violence in any context. Everyone in France knows someone who was raised with joyful like "you're good for nothing, you'll end up under the bridges".

yeah, that's probably true. Lot of people got messed up by war. Entire generations in fact. 

To give you an example in my family. My mom's father was brought up with 2 other brothers in 1950s. When the Red Army marched over central Europe  in 1944-1945, they were taking over small private enterprises during collectivisation effort of Soviet Union. My dad's father had a workshop where he was doing carpentry, smithy etc which made his living. It got taken away from him. He started drinking and beating his eldest son, my grandfather's brother. He would beat him with stick, call him a useless fa*****, a scum etc. For nothing basically. The father died a broken man in age of 65. 

His son (the one he beat) grew up a neurotic and would then move on to beat his own son later in life. His son (my mom's cousin) grew up neurotic with mental health problems, unable to form relationship with women. He chased away his wife and his son ran away to live in Italy. I don't know anything about the son but I heard he has a kid now at age of 20. 

You could say that a war fucked up 4 generations of people and caused abuse and mental health disease. Only the young boy in Italy, if he is lucky, now has a chance to get some therapy and stop a family shadow. If not, maybe his son will..the 5th generation. 

We often don't realise how severely this incidence messed up generations of men and women for 50 + years. If you talk to people enough and ask questions and if you also study history, you'll notice connections and patterns. And suddenly everything makes sense. People act out of impulses embeded in them by generations of abuse , its almost never anybody's fault if they are messed up. Not just Europeans. You could be an Aussie or Canuck and still be the 4th generation of PTSD great-granddad with 6 years of battlefield experience who messed up the whole family

When I now see people hailing , glorifying far right and empathising with Hitler...it makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up because it looks too much like late 1930s in Europe . But people don't read, they don't care, they don't know their own history and they make history repeat itself making dumb selfish decisions. i dont think they'll be another war, but it worries me how alienated we are from one another and there'll be consequences of that

anyway, i'm deviating from the topic..soz OP 

Edited 17 minutes ago by Michael569

[Something Funny]

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

billionaire

a typo, lol.

4 hours ago, Emerald said:

I suspect most people who identify as loners have not experienced solitude in the extreme.

Yeah, that might be the case.

[Something Funny]

@Michael569 thank you.

[Paradoxed]

You should read Into the Wild.