Alone Together
We're taught what to value, how to behave, and what success looks like. Over time, these ideals are reinforced through education, family, media, and social interactions— until they permeate and seep into our very sense of self. Those standards that are meant to guide and nurture us gradually begin to confine us.
As we internalize these expectations into our core, we unconsciously begin to mold ourselves around them. What initially existed as external ideals, gradually becomes our identity, our behaviour, and our way of life. We adhere and live according to principles never truly questioning them, not realizing that these imposed standards can't fulfill our deepest need for understanding and social connection.
In the pursuit for connection, we find ourselves interacting with something other than people—something human, but not quite human. Think about it, how often do we anthropomorphize objects, pretend they're alive, or speak to them as if they're capable of responding? This isn’t just imagination at play; it’s an unconscious attempt to preserve the illusion of social interaction. Desperately seeking some form of connection, clinging on to an illusion. How we speak to our belongings, our technology, or even imagined entities as if they were alive, responsive and capable to mutual exchange. The more we pretend to be understood, the more we lose touch with real connection. The more we affirm our loneliness, the more isolated we feel, trapped in a loop where imitation replaces intimacy. Everything around feeling so filtered, polished, and optimized. The world reflects back a version of ourselves that is neat but hollow, craving the kind of connection that doesn’t require translation or is transactional.
When you want to strike up deep conversations about life, about anything that lets you feel like you are truly being listened to. Things that require listening to be understood, but the most you'll ever get is probably talking about the weather. The realization of not being able to communicate, feeling no longer human, mentally, and that there are only humans around you.
