Blessed American Loneliness

I DECIDED TO TRY an experiment. I decided to stop initiating contact with other people. My telephone, my email, my snail mail address and street address would still be well known to my friends and family, and anytime i received a communication of any kind i would promptly and cheerfully respond, but i would not be the one initiating contact, or starting the conversation, or keeping in touch. I'd let other folks do it for awhile. I'd done my share, and more than, for a while. The reason for this change is that i was looking for ways to increase my focus and productivity at the keyboard, to do more essay writing, rather than emailing, which is more fun and easier on the intellect and thus, more alluring than serious writing. You can get very caught up in an online social media life, whether its facebook, twitter, email, chat, whatever. In fact you can get addicted to it, like anything else that's psychologically rewarding. My purppse in giving up contact initiation was to find ways to help me focus better. Within a very short time i noticed that all my contact with the outside world, the world at large, including my family and circle of friends, had stopped. Stopped cold, dead in its tracks. No email, no phone calls nothing. Its been very quiet. And its no big deal. I understand why, I understand that people are busy, and so forth. There was a time, nearly a decade and a half ago, when i entered chatrooms online and nearly got addicted to them. They became, for a time, my primary social vehicle. My friends are people I have known most of my life, known face to face, but they have scattered all over the country over the years, and.....are...now....silent. Someday, maybe, they'll come back... But I know they're there for me, out there somewhere, always have been, always will be. Its all good, as we say in america. I once had a friend from china, who moved here from shanghai in the mid eighties, and had only lived in my small lower midwestern university town a few months when he began to feel lonely. "you amellicans are the roneliest people in the world", he fumed, "you care more about your dogs and cats than you do each other!"...as i listened to him, I thought...you're right about that, but, so what? Isn't everyone like that? "HELL YES we americans care more about dogs and cats than each other! I know I do!" I retorted. Fact is a harvard study revelased taht ten percent of americans prefer dogs and cats to humans, and the other ninety percent is lying. My communist chinese friend greatly enjoyed the creature comforts of capitalism, decided to stay in america, but moved to chicago, where, at last report, he was somewhat happier, but still feeling lonely, adrift in a small town. But when push comes to shove, we americans are there for each other, you can bet your sweet bippy on that! We americans are a bunch of individualistic, independent, self sufficient, lonely miserable wretches whose basic social needs are often neglected, and only infrequently, inadequately met. The average american today has at least one friend fewer than a generation ago, research indicates. But so what? We love it that way! God Bless American culture!