I recently had my enneagram done, the results of which were at once surprising, and not. For those who don’t know, it’s a personality “test” in which, once you’ve answered a set of questions and they’ve been evaluated, you get a number that represents a worldview and archetype that resonates with your core motivations. Essentially, what makes you tick, a sort of “cut-to-the-chase” psychotherapy that saves you years on an analyst’s couch.
Since this has an impact on personality as well as thinking, feeling and actions, HR departments in the corporate world often use these tests, before the interview stage, to determine whether jobseekers will fit with the team they will have to work with.
After carefully perusing the 25 densely packed pages of a report that painted a (quite accurate, in most respects) picture of me, the thing that resonated most was finding out that, apparently, I believe that something is missing in my life – something that others seem to have an abundance of.
My vices were listed as envy and fantasy, longing for what I am not and for what I don’t have. And probably worst of all, a dissatisfaction with ordinary reality. Ouch.
Well, of course I’m envious if I don’t have what other people have, like an active social life – if their social media platforms are anything to go by. Modern parlance even has an acronym for it: Fomo – a fear of missing out. Is that a vice?
It follows that I would need a fantasy life to manage not being able to compete with people’s Instagram posts.
I’ve always had an active imagination. In my fantasy world – since childhood – I am Italian. (Go figure!) And in this parallel universe, I am the matriarch of a big family.
I, the Mama, am seated at the head of a laden table, set under a spreading chestnut tree in the middle of an exquisite pastoral landscape, the hills dotted with perfectly groomed sheep quietly grazing in verdant fields. In this make-believe world, I am surrounded by my children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins. And friends. Lots of friends.
The reality is that my life is the complete opposite of this long longed-for fantasy. Hardly a vice.
Around the time the enneagram report arrived in my inbox, I bumped into a friend at an art exhibition in which the artist had explored the relationship between humans and the vast open space that is the cosmos, underlining our importance, not insignificance, as we place ourselves in the void.
My friend said the exhibition made him feel small and a little lonely, which, though it was the opposite of the artist’s intention, seemed appropriate.
At the same time, Samantha Harvey won the 2024 Booker Prize with her slim volume Orbital – an affecting, deeply human tale of six astronauts who, in space to conduct scientific experiments and collect data, reflect on big questions: What is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity?
Orbital reaffirmed our importance in the greater scheme of things, that our lives on the Blue Planet matter. Still, considering that there are an estimated two trillion galaxies in the observable universe, the temptation to feel small and inconsequential is considerable.
And so we circle back to social media, to Fomo, to feeling as though everyone else has a more attractive life than we do, that we are, essentially, leading a dull life, without colour or adventure, often alone.
Loose connection
Being closely involved in our communities gives us a sense of belonging and can help curb mindless scrolling, and avoid Fomo. (Photo: Midjourney / Freepik)
This makes us feel poor, excluded, different, empty. Lonely. We want another life, someone else’s life.
And yet, we humans have never been more connected to one another. We can communicate en masse with everyone in our suburb on a WhatsApp group, or with people on opposite ends of the globe, with enough data, largely for free. We can watch the Russia-Ukraine war being fought in real time.
But, if the research is to be believed, we have also never been more isolated in the history of the world, more lonely.
In October 2024, the Harvard Graduate School of Education released a report in which US surgeon-general Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic, calling it a major public health risk for individuals and society. (About half of American adults reported being lonely.)
He explained loneliness as more than just “a bad feeling”, describing it as “a subjective distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections”. Essentially, a gaping chasm between expectation, unmet needs and actual experience.
The findings were surprising: young people – between 18 and 45 – were as lonely as those much older. Race, ethnicity, gender, political ideology – none of these seemed to make any difference.
Ernest Hemingway famously said: “In our darkest moments, we don’t need solutions or advice. What we yearn for is simply human connection.”
I arrived in New York City in 1998 as the Sunday Times correspondent and remember that communication with strangers was normal. People talked to one another on the bus, in subway cars, loud New Yorker talk. Strangers asked you questions, told you (rudely) about plus-size specials at Macy’s. It made you feel a part of this crazy, busy metropolis.
Now people on public transport, in airports, in line at the supermarket check-out, in doctors’ waiting rooms – everywhere – are glued to small screens, probably envying their friends’ Facebook or Instagram posts of fabulous holidays or burgeoning love affairs. The happy snaps that leave us feeling like our existence is meaningless, that we are somehow less significant. Like everyone else is having a better time than us.
Depression and anxiety, it has been found, are the bedfellows of loneliness.
Many, including me, would rather chat on WhatsApp than make an actual phone call – which requires concentrated effort for its duration. You can’t scroll through cooking shorts on YouTube in the text pauses. Our attention span has dwindled, as has our ability to concentrate.
It has left me wondering if distancing ourselves from what people are actually thinking and feeling has caused a breakdown in global communication.
Whether, in our loneliness, we fill the space with useless snippets that barely pass as information, and in the process, give up our right to human rights.
US President Donald Trump and his hatchet man – the richest man in the world and our most shameful export, Elon Musk (I wish they’d stop referring to him as South African) – are creating a cruel, selfish world where helping those less fortunate, those in need, is being upended.
Throttling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has astonished the world. This agency was set up when I was a child in the early 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programmes on behalf of the US government.
The term Big Brother was apt for the superpower US, which saw it as its duty to care for the vulnerable and those in need.
More than 10,000 people are (or were) employed in more than 60 countries, including our own, with USAID’s budget of about $40-billion (in 2023) spent largely on global health programmes, monitoring the world’s gold-standard famine detection system and helping to identify and stop the spread of viruses that could cause a pandemic.
Have we been so locked into our devices, feeling Fomo about our friends’ fabulous holidays in the Algarve or Spain, that we’ve allowed the world – given it permission, actually – to lose its humanity?
Perhaps the rise of Trump and his nationalism and populist political methods is a wake-up call for those of us who believe in the power of good.
It’s well documented that suicide rates declined during World War 2 – and also during other disasters and conflicts. This unexpected phenomenon has been attributed to the urgent need for intensified social cohesion during times of distress.
We’re in a time of distress and should be less lonely and more connected as we fight the good fight. We certainly don’t need a woke world, but we do need a compassionate, honest, kind world that not only looks after the interests of the rich.
In Blue Zones, where people live the longest, one of the key factors is being closely involved in the community. It provides a sense of belonging, social support, purpose. It boosts self-esteem, making you feel useful.
It’s the antidote to loneliness and a curb on brain-numbing, mindless scrolling. DM
Charmain Naidoo is a journalist and media strategist.
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
