A couple of months ago I watched a Film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segal. The film had the title “The End of the Tour.” The story centers around writer and journalist David Lipsky, who had the pleasure of interviewing the acclaimed author, David Foster Wallace, before his suicide. David Foster Wallace was the author of the fictional novel “Infinite Jest.” The novel is an encyclopedia of the human condition. David Foster Wallace had a vision of our future conditions. Even in 1996, he knew that the growth for loneliness was an infestation waiting to plague our beautiful souls. One of the key components today is the technology.

A quote by David Foster Wallace:

“So as the Internet grows in the next 10,15 years… and virtual reality pornography becomes a reality, we’re gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts…to turn off pure, unalloyed pleasure. Or, I don’t know about you, I’m gonna have to leave the planet. ’Cause the technology is just gonna get better and better. And it’s gonna get easier and easier….and more convenient and more pleasurable…to sit alone with images on a screen…given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. And that’s fine in low doses, but if it’s the basic main staple of your diet, you’re gonna die.”

This quote was documented in 1996, and we now live in 2016. He is absolutely right. Technology has replaced interaction. It is more plausible to have a conversation with an individual on Facebook then it is actually catching up with them in person. Virtual reality helmets are an accessory that comes free with your phone. So any real reaction is a luxury now and no longer a necessity. I, by no means, am bashing technology. It is personally a huge resource of mine, but I have also found It as an antagonist for my own loneliness and depression. Why hang out with friends, when you can just let them in life through Snapchat? Why leave the house, when you can binge watch the newest Netflix series?

Love in 2016 is foreign, because let’s be honest, we have forgotten how to interact. I don’t need to engage in a conversation with another person, I can just check out their Facebook page or Twitter, and read about their life and I’m all caught up.

God did not intend for us to be alone. That is why it is a plague. A true sickness, a sickness that is killing us slowly and softly. Interaction has been intercepted with blindness to love. Love is a fast food now, instead of a home cooked meal, made from scratch.

Loneliness is a painful emotion. When you feel alone, you feel exiled from any instance of life including your own. Eventually, you doubt ever feeling joy and so you eventually want to take your life.

Another component is pain and internal war. I can not count the amount times so far in my life I have been disappointed and hurt. This hurt has formed depression and the package of depression comes with a side of loneliness. A loneliness so powerful, it isolates an individual from ever experiencing joy ever again. A movie I like to associate with this theory of mine about the partnership of loneliness and isolation is called “Into the Wild.” The film came out in 2007 and starred Emile Hirsch as the main protagonist, Chris McCandless. The story, the movie is adapted from is a true story. Chris McCandless was an intelligent, college graduate from Emory University and an elite student/athlete, who decided to give up everything, donating all of the money in his bank account to charity and trek the wild. His ultimate goal was to hitchhike to the Alaskan wilderness. Most people who observe the peculiar story tend to ask, "Why would this privileged young man would do such a thing?” Chris was on track to fulfill the American Dream, but this dream consumed him. The inner pain of dissatisfaction and broken relationships trapped his true self within. He lost himself, and in turn allowed loneliness to trap him and send him the ultimate prison sentence of isolation. Once Chris finally understood that his life wasn’t too horrifying and that his purpose included him being amongst other beings, it was too late. He was sentenced to death. I wish I could say that his story is fictional and a one-time affair but unfortunately, the Chris’ of the World walk amongst us in broad daylight.

The way out of the madness is by adopting life into our loneliness. The first step is letting people in. If you are at a coffee shop by yourself and an old man asks, “How’s your day going?” invite him in, tell him the truth. Create dialogue that warms his heart and yours. God will bless the conversation and create something beautiful, a connection. This creates interaction and then opens the way to your heart. It also eliminates isolation because it is much harder to become lonely when you are surrounded by the joyous gift of interaction and life.