Doreen Fairclough and Lucille, plus Molly the pug
(featured in article).
Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian
Posted on 01/29/2018 10:37:17 PM PST by beaversmom
Steve talks in a way that makes you want him to keep talking. His warm humour immediately puts you at ease, which makes it difficult to process what he is describing: a period in his late 20s, about two decades ago, when loneliness felt so engulfing he could barely speak. He craved the company of friends, but when they visited, he gave them cold cups of tea to make them leave. “I’d be at home absolutely desperate to see somebody, but then all I wanted was for them to get out. I’d try to get rid of them as soon as I could by not talking to them, being rude, the cold-cup-of-tea tactic – all the while knowing that was not the thing that I wanted,” he says.
This is how scientists identify lonely monkeys – they don’t look for the monkey pottering around contentedly by himself; they look for the monkey that hesitantly approaches the crowd then steps back, that makes overtures to groom another, then timidly pulls away.
We are living through an epidemic of loneliness. On Wednesday, Theresa May appointed Tracey Crouch as what some are calling the UK’s first minister for loneliness: the minister for sport and civil society will head a group that aims to tackle the problem. One recent study found that more than nine million adults in the UK are either always or often lonely. A study for the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness found that 35% of men feel lonely at least once a week. And scientists are learning more and more about the damage chronic loneliness does to our bodies: it is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, as dangerous as obesity, and increases the likelihood of an early death by 26%. But what we don’t hear...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Sorry...one of my favourite Beatles’ songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y
“She’s Leaving Home” is another thoughtful beautiful gem, for the string quartet alone, thanks to George Martin.
George Martin was great, wasn’t he? The songs with strings are some of my favourites.
Paul McCartney sang the lead on both those songs. If I were a musician, and all I ever did was write and sing those two songs (plus Here,There& Everywhere, Michelle and Yesterday), I would consider my life as an artist to be fully worthwhile. When I hear the Beatle songs from that era, I sort of understand why Paul has always been known to be prideful and conceited. I would be too.
In Japan they call it hikikomori. It is common with younger men who basically never leave home.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
Yep, Paul is good. And he DOES know it.
Thanks for that term. I’ll have to let my Japan-loving daughter know that.
A lot of Japanese anime titles deal with hikikomori among teens: Welcome to the NHK, No Game No Life, Heaven’s Memo Pad, Chaos;Head, Anohana, ReLife, many others. Recovery of an MMO Junkie is a rare 30-something female example.
I bet she is familiar with it then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.