We talk blithely about social media, 6 degrees of separation, the global village, but all of this immediacy has taken a toll on human intimacy.
I am no Luddite, and partake willingly in most social media and Internet platforms, loving the ability to share my feelings with my family and friends spread across the globe. I make frequent use of the Internet to fuel my desire for new information, but this all comes at a price. The price is a loss of privacy, and a loss of the closer more tightly knit communities of the past.
You may argue that Facebook, Google+ and the Internet bring us closer together, make us more able to share with our friends, and you are right. We can now share faster and with a wider audience, but we have let that speed and immediacy replace the shared laugh over dinner, the warm retelling of a story over a coffee or the shelter of a warm embrace. Yes the Internet allows us to create communities of like-minded people, and in many respects these communities enrich our lives, yet we are still losing touch with what we valued from our youth and that is the closeness of human contact.
This all came home to me in a profound way when I attended a conference this week presented by Colourways of Australia, which looks at current and future Colour and Design trends. I recorded key words used regularly by participants from all walks of life and diverse industry sectors, and these words highlighted to me this yearning for things we may have set aside or have been deprived of by our desire to embrace a new faster digital world.
Authentic
Anchoring
Safety
Honest
Sustainable
Natural
Reclamation
The word reclamation to me sums this up. Reclamation is the process of reclaiming something from loss.
There is a moving trend towards reclamation, not only in its simplest form of reclaiming and recycling of creating something new from old and discarded items, but in reclaiming what we as people feel that we have given up.
There is a definite trend and movement to reclaim the communities where we live, our family lives, our closeness and our environment.
We have willingly given away these values and connections, and now we can actively choose to reclaim what we have given up.
It is not hard to reclaim, it does not require us to forsake the modern world, and retreat to a cave or rural community it requires simply a desire to be with real people, families and communities celebrating that which brings us together, face-to-face.
Within your family it can be as simple as eating every meal at the dining room table, with the TV, the computer and mobile phones switched off. Use those 30 minutes to discuss the day, to laugh and share. Introduce yourself to your neighbour!
Celebrate yourself, celebrate your community and just for a few minutes every day disconnect from the immediacy of the modern world and find some way to reconnect with what you love.