Spend More Time Out With People

This article on Sydney Morning Herald discusses what I’ve been thinking about for some time now. Everyone knows that chats over facebook or gmail chat are no substitute for going out for a coffee or dinner and sharing your recent experiences and ideas with one or more people.

“Despite a constant stream of mediated contact, virtual, notional, or simulated, which keeps us wired in to the electronic hive, two-way intimate contact seems to be on the wane. Much of what happens in psychologists’ rooms is essentially the privatisation of this function. Like childcare and some aged services, it represents the outsourcing of intimate human roles to the market. It is the professionalisation of emotion management.”

And we see what has been going on in places like New York for some time.
<continued after the break> People distance themselves from the problems of others as a defense mechanism – ‘I have my own problems, what do I look like? Tell yours to your shrink’. This is the wrong way to go about things. Within limits, it can be cathartic working through or just hearing out the problems and frustrations of friends and family. Sometimes we learn something further about our own situations, and because many of these people belong to the same social, cultural or socioeconomic stratum as you do, you are more likely to get overlap with them in terms of their experiences then with a psychiatrist. Not necessarily, but in general.

So go out for a few beers, go out for coffee, as a first measure before heading to psychiatrists. Slot it into schedules the same way you would slot in head doc appointments. I think it might even be cheaper. Again – not necessarily! But in general.

Go one step further – try to actively identify someone who looks like they need to talk, someone that doesn’t seem to speak up much in a group (that’s sometimes a good sign) and spend time just with them. It’s not hard when you’re tuned into looking for it. Doesn’t have to be a good friend, just someone. You can achieve incalculable good just showing you care. One only need look to one’s own community to think of the more extreme ends to cases where a person never receives any attention or interest; and afterwards - there are always people who walk away from their crestfallen families and think that they could have done more, they could have gone for that beer. It wouldn’t have taken much at all to chill with him, or to go for a walk with her.

Lastly, note the book Ahmed mentions Crazy Like Us; the Globalisation of the American Psyche. It was featured on The Daily Show recently, and it’s quite interesting that our mental problems are being defined for us, diagnosed and treated for us by large pharmaceutical companies. The case highlighted on The Daily Show was how the treatment of depression has shifted in Japan.

“A Canadian social scientist, Barry Wellman, calculates that the average person has 250 ties to friends and relatives. But the massive previously unmet need for psychological services suggest these connections are not of a quality that are providing fulfilment and meaning for many people. In reality, we seem to be more alone than ever.”

Minimal effort + fun/eats/drinks = maximum gain. Go out more. Turn your phone on silent too.