I haven't been to a hairdresser for a trim very long time - I trim my own hair. Part of the reason is that I just can't find the time to book in advance, the other reason is that I can achieve close enough to the same result myself, which has likely saved me a couple thousand euros over the last 15 years. I can't even remember the last time I had my haircut done by someone else, but I do know a few hairdressers, have grown up with them in my life from a young age and one thing always gets mentioned - how much people tell them.
I think the idea is that hairdressers (and bartenders) are like being at the confessional, except they aren't judging and they aren't looking to impose some kind of punishment for salvation, they are uninvested, impartial and represent a sounding board to listen and reflect ideas upon. While not a hairdresser or bartender, this is how I have been used since coming to Finland, where people who generally do not share intimate details of their lives, feel comfortable to share with me.
Over the years I have heard all manner of things confessed, from people who are worried about their job security, to others who are cheating on their partners and one time where a person who I later discovered was contemplating suicide, chose to reevaluate her decisions based on a discussion we had in an English class. I have literally had thousands of students and clients over the last 17 years and it is near uniform that they "open up" and talk. They are almost compelled to do so.
There are a number of factors at play as to why this is the case, with the language being one. When we speak a secondary language, a lot of the emotional connection to what we are saying is detached, meaning we are able to go deeper into a topic without triggering a strong emotional reaction. This is also why people when speaking secondary languages can seem "rude" and "blunt" as there are less filters in place - again, there are reasons for this including the mental bandwidth - meaning that unlike their mother tongue, it takes effort to form the sentences.
However, I think that what is going on is an indication of people who have a lot to say, but don't have anyone to say it to. Yes, they have the family and friends closest to them, but it seems that they are the hardest to confide in, especially when there are issues concerning them. It might be that because everyone is invested in the discussion, the discussion is harder to have. I think that this is also why people tend to share more of themselves online than what they do with their family these days - where family need to keep up to date with posts to have an idea of what is going on in their loved one's lives.
But, I also think that because of this process, we are disconnecting ourselves from those who are actually invested in us being our best - meaning that we spend more time discussing with strangers than with the people we care about. We have created a weird environment where we are able to share our thoughts globally, but struggle to speak to those who we live with locally, where we influence each other far more directly. We have access to a million connections, but fail to connect meaningfully with any.
I think that part of the reason is that unlike the hairdresser and bartender, people online aren't looking to listen, they are looking to share. The value of the internet is the ability to distribute information and social media encourages a stream of sharing, not caring.
I was talking to a friend the other day about the disconnection and loneliness that people feel and they argued that we are more connected than ever. But, scroll through Instagram and see the lie. There is account after account of selfies, as if someone wants to see a stream of pictures of us. But what people don't seem to recognize is that they are generally selfies - no one else is there - it is a person alone, taking a picture of themselves to share, seemingly in a way to connect with others. A billion heads floating alone in the ether - saying nothing of consequence.
The level of depression is on the rise, the dependence on drugs to regulate emotions is on the rise, the discontent and social violence is on the rise - and I suspect that all of the digital noise that is now spilling onto the streets is a symptom of people not actually being listened to. People might say that it is about the conversation between society and government - but I do not think that this is the root at all - it is a lack of conversation at the most intimate levels - people not being listened to in the home or in their immediate circle, as the face-to-face of conversation has been removed, with the latest nail being an engineered and pandemic that ramps up fear and severely restricts meaningful engagement.
I believe that what we forget about the ills of society is that we are that society, we as individuals affect all things at the granular micro level to create groups that ramp up into macro trends. A dysfunctional society is symptomatic of the sickness of individuals and over the last decades, we have driven compartmentalization and fragmentation of people into single cells that are no longer tied to even the people living under the same roof. We blame the system, the same system we have created and continue to support in a myriad ways.
Perhaps a large part of the problem is that the online world we are encouraged to engage with doesn't have to reflect our reality, whereas when we are talking with those we are actually surrounded by, the disconnection is obvious. Online we can be "anyone" - whereas in reality we are already someone.
This is both a blessing and a curse as we do not have to be trapped by the expectations built on our past performance, but if we are not careful, the digital world we create is not representative of who we actually are - and while we can fool the strangers, it is more difficult to fool ourselves. Even if we manage to ignore the gap between digital and reality, we can still feel it as a hole that needs to be filled, but we are incentivized to try filling it, by digging a deeper hole for ourselves.
There is a massive amount of value to conversations with strangers, but at some point, we need to bring the discussion home.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]