Let’s Get Physical

I hope you’re weathering the storms. Hold onto your hat and your heart, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. And yet, life with my cohabitant is lovely. Things are good here. People are kind here. It’s quite a contrast to the drama I see on my screens and it does make me wonder what’s real. Physical connections remind me that the digital world is often a deep fake. When I spend too much time online, I start to go negative. So, let’s get physical. It’s a way to restore our faith in the future. And it’s the smart thing to do. 

Here’s the contrast. When I go to the grocery store, people are very polite. There’s always somebody tall to help me reach the jar on the top shelf. I’m not afraid to approach a tall person and ask. I went to the clinic for a mammogram and everyone there was nice, too. It was my least painful boob squash ever! The people at the dog park are friendly. We talk about our dogs and the park because we have something important in common. Recently, I returned my new eyeglasses because they gave me a headache and the women at the optometrist’s office were very helpful. And we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant and we came out alive. Who knew?

There are good people all around us physically, but online it’s hard to tell. On social media, robots blur reality into manipulation. I remember when I first joined Facebook after my husband died in 2009, and that winter a blizzard swept drifts of snow up against the sides of my house. It took me an hour shoveling just to get to the barn to feed my cows. Shortly after I posted that dilemma on Facebook, people from town arrived at my house with snow shovels to help me. Today that rescue probably would not happen because most of my Facebook friends don’t see my posts. There is a layer of algorithms between us that measure your interest in the keywords in my post. If you haven’t recently shown interest in me or snow, my post about needing help to shovel is unlikely to appear in your feed. That’s why we need physical relationships more than ever. Social media used to be a reliable network. But it’s not reliable anymore. 

Life hack! I’m seeing more of my friends, more acquaintances and more strangers. Hugging more. Expanding my network of face-to-face relationships. Making an effort to meet new people. I’m taking a class in a physical classroom with other physically present learners. Went to a meeting at the physical public library. Joined a discussion group of humans who sit in a room around a table and talk about a particular topic. One recent topic was Fuck Pink where cancer survivors were invited to share gritty stories of bravery and harrowing caregiving. These interactions open my mind. I wash my hair more often! In the days that follow a group discussion, my brain toys with the exchange of ideas and I examine my own thinking. Because I’m going to see these people again. We are talking. We are having coffee or we are sharing a meal. And this is how our relationships evolve. Talking together is how we change our minds. Conversation is a skill. I want to excel at it. 

Half a century ago, they began to teach us about pollution in school and I saw then how many businesses argued that the idea of pollution was just propaganda. They said pollution wasn’t a problem because the Earth had the capacity to absorb our effluents and excrement, and it would all just disappear naturally. Then that thing happened with Lake Erie catching fire in 1969 and it wasn’t so easy for the polluters to convince the public that pollution wasn’t really a problem. I think the cultural moment we are in is a lot like Lake Erie catching fire. Digital pollution matters. Globally people are coping with large scale social media pollution and it doesn’t seem to be disappearing naturally. People are on fire with lies. Physical relationships are a way to put out that fire. 

Look into the eyes of other people and renew your social resources. Get out of your bubble. Ancient tribes traveled hundreds of miles on foot to be with other tribes, new people, because they understood the value of diversity for their food supply, their plants and seeds, their children and their knowledge. Diversity is a survival mechanism. It’s why farmers rotate crops. It’s why financial advisors recommend a mixed investment portfolio. It’s why you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. It’s why you can’t live on cheese. It’s why companion planting is an effective strategy for gardeners. And it’s why marrying your siblings is a bad idea. Diversity builds your resilience.

For me, the great irony of this missive is that I am typing it on a screen and you are reading it on a screen. I will post this on several social media and I will return to those posts to reply to comments. I will scroll through my feed and feel frustration at all the content shoved at me by robots, and I will delete the hacks I find on my own page. I have a digital life. Both of my novels are about life with robots. I am fascinated by technology. My focus on physical is an effort to restore the balance that I lost in the pandemic when physical relationships were arrested. More than ever, I see the cost of that isolation. It created some bad habits. So, I’m redoubling my investment in physical relationships for my mental health, my personal safety, and the simple beauty of it. It’s good to be human. Let’s keep it that way. Let’s get physical.