Episode 3 – Lost in an interconnected world

Hello and welcome to Being Meraklis a podcast by Shwetha Sivaraman

If you are tuning in for the very first time, Being Meraklis is a podcast about life through my journey of self-discovery. This podcast is a conversation on life, a reminder of how we are not alone in this journey, and on the simple things we can do to make this life a memorable and beautiful experience.

Hope you guys had a fantastic Diwali and that the year began with festive cheer, some quality time with family and lots of love and laughter.

Today I want to begin the year by talking about something important that we all have in common but often overlook – Loneliness. We live in an interconnected world but often find ourselves lonely.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a community gathering that triggered my thoughts to talk about this in my podcast. It was a group of 15 of us huddled in a cozy space to watch a couple of thought-provoking shows. We then engaged in a friendly debate. Not just superficial discussions on Hello, How are you? or yelling at the top of our voices, it was conversations – in-depth, articulated thoughts, and meaningful discussions.

As I got engrossed deeper and deeper into the conversation, though, I realized this has been a while. It’s been a while since I conversed face-to-face and had a meaningful conversation with someone.

Do you recollect the last time you made eye-contact with a complete stranger and had a conversation?
I really couldn’t.
Today, we communicate through screens, apps, and voice commands. At dinner tables with loved ones, we are accompanied by beeps, likes, comments, and snaps that take our attention away – to everywhere else but the table. We walk on roads immersed into our screens many a time barely even acknowledging other humans as we pass.

Don’t get me wrong. Technology has been an incredible innovation. We can ping a person from across the globe at the touch of a button. We can turn on the air-conditioning at home at the voice of our command. We can watch our children at playschool sitting in an office on an app. We can even make our voice heard by millions in less than 140 characters. The world has never been so accessible and connected.
But that day, I realized that this technology that we have proudly created – and have collectively imbibed has robbed us of something else instead – a human connection.

We proudly boast over 1000 connections online but still feel lonely in real-life. We are always in touch with people over messages but are hardly ever communicating anything real. We follow or rather stalk 100s of friends online, we know what they ate for breakfast, who they spent Diwali with, and where they travelled last summer. But when it comes to the real things they are truly facing in their lives, we have no idea. How many days after is he/she actually having breakfast? How many fights later is that picture in Diwali taken? After how many lonely nights did he/she book tickets to travel and spend the summer abroad? We have no idea, just as much as others have no clue about our lives in reality. A social feed of just the happy memories and curated photos makes for a well-designed wall, but how much does it really help in our lives?

These days, we spend more time editing, photoshopping, and curating our thoughts than we invest in developing them. We possess a treasure trove of knowledge stored in google search results and wiki pages but lack depth on any subject.
I recently read a quote which I feel summarises our generation perfectly
“We are drowning in information, but are starved for knowledge.”

Relying on technology a little bit more with every passing day, we are slowly shutting down our faculties to learn, to think, to move, to imagine, to engage, or to create. With every new technology we depend on, we are slowly losing touch with life and living. With every passing generation we know lesser and lesser about our own selves.

Despite the best of comforts available and the latest of technology to ease our lives, we find ourselves further and further apart, lost in search of a real connection. Depression, FOMO, anxiety have taken over our lives – as we live more on our social profiles than in real life.

I know we cannot turn back in time or go back to living under a rock. On the contrary, we are or the cusp of transforming into a hyper-connected world driven probably by AI-powered bots. Before that becomes a norm, it is essential that we consciously choose what technology we adopt in our lives.

Embrace technologies that help you communicate better to far off lands e-mails, facetime, whatsapp. Choose the technologies that help you overcome rare diseases – anything and everything under medical innovation).

Adopt technologies that help you do things faster than before – cars, flights, trains, washing machines or even blenders
But, learn to draw the line there. Technology must empower our lives, not disintegrate life itself.

Make a conscious effort to spend time off-technology. Spend quality time getting to know yourself, the people living with you, your neighbors, and your community better. Interact more, converse deeper, and engage better in real life. Observe the puffiness or the dark circles in someone’s eyes, their change in mannerisms – are they suddenly down? Are their eyes not lit-up as they used to be before?- let them know you are there for them if they ever need to chat.

Make an effort to open up, yourself with those who you can trust to share your innermost thoughts, fears, and emotions. Beyond just reacting to stories with emoticons – converse, share, talk to people about what you are really feeling. Lets not feel lonely and ensure that no one around us also feel lonely because they do not have an empathetic shoulder to cry on.

For those at the receiving end of someone’s thoughts – Remember it took them a lot of courage to open up to you irrespective of the severity of the situation. Listen wholeheartedly and with no judgement. You do not need to solve the problems if you do not have an answer, just opening up and sharing can release immense heaviness one might feel facing challenges alone. All you need to do is be there to back them up as they face their own demons.

If you wish to speak to me, I am always available across social channels under the handle beingmeraklis – most active on Instagram and Facebook. This year, let us promise to leave no one behind and rather be stronger together.

If you have not subscribed to my Podcast yet, please please do so. All you need to do is download the Hubhopper app, search for Being Meraklis Podcast and click on the Orange Subscribe button. It is absolutely free and I would really appreciate you taking the time to do it. And you can be sure never to miss a new episode on this podcast.

Thank you once again for tuning in, This is Shwetha Sivaraman signing out until we meet again.