Disconnected People
I used to think I was more disconnected than most. I’m not so sure anymore. I think I’m connected just the right amount to the people and things that I care about. The rest are dust particles blown into the next town by one of those new twenty-nine-minute power storms. I’m not sure everyone else is noticing. I’m walking amongst a crevasse of disconnected people.
Boundaries comfort me like a hot water bottle when I had a stomach ache at nine. People seem a bit lost. Aimless because they’ve lost the ability to connect. How can one really connect with another human when you check the tiny computer in your pocket every forty-four seconds? We are all guilty. Buzz. React. Check something else. Lost.
The last time I was in New York City, I really felt it. Bodies walking. Faces on phones. Times Square raining technology down on its citizens like candy from a malformed piñata. There are still some tootsie rolls left because everyone got back to their business. Email. Text. Ping. Zap. Lost attention spans flooding through society like a tidal wave.
Each year, I choose to give less and less time to the people and things that don’t matter to me. Maybe that’s callous. I think it’s efficient for living the back half of my life mindfully and around those whom I have deep affection for. Time is fleeting. Technology is advancing. We are compressing.
I tell myself that if I didn’t have kids, even though they are adults, I wouldn’t need a cell phone. Landlines used to be exciting, for those old enough to remember when our parents yelled out that we had a call. Or the nervousness of calling a new friend, but having to go through their parent with a veiled, impromptu teenage introduction in our backpacks. It was quite the minefield.
We used to string together ten people on a daisy chain conference call, each new addition with a softer voice than the last, and it was amazing. We had no idea we would one day be able to Zoom with each other during a year-long pandemic and wax longingly about how we barely knew who was on those old calls because each person had to keep re-announcing themselves so we knew what we could say and what we couldn’t.
I yearn for real connection, but am predisposed to an arm’s length. Please stand over there because if you get too close to me, I might not like it. Crowds. Close-talking. Cramped elevators. Coffee breath. Awkward silence. It sounds interesting again.
Email is worse than our exterior mailbox now, stuffed with more spam than the supermarket’s circular and Pam Smith’s latest $241,000 sale in your neighborhood. Buy this. Discounts aplenty. We will be in your neighborhood cutting trees; can we cut yours? Look at this fake handwriting font that makes it look like a letter. Barfing into an airplane bag after eating Cheetos.
Do you know the feeling when you think a Lego won’t fit and then it does? Lock-in. When you jiggle the key a little, and it works? Openness. Is this available between humans anymore? I really hope so. I shudder to think one day we will all be wandering the streets with VR goggles on, becoming a real-life society of missed connections.
When I write, I connect with something. I can feel it.
© Jonathan Greene, July 17, 2026
