What a Boatyard Taught Me About Loneliness
One of the times I felt the most alone was while housesitting in a mansion in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. This 6,000-square-foot, historical building had three floors of living space and a penthouse office overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts, and the shimmering Bay. I could choose among three different bathrooms, took a nightly hot bath, enjoyed a private infrared sauna, worked out in my personal gym, and cooked in a huge and luxurious kitchen.
I was sitting on the couch in front of huge bay windows when I realized how lonely I was. I was trapped in this huge mansion in a city made of concrete and glass, and when I walked down the street, nobody smiled or said hello. Across the way from those bay windows, I could see white light glistening from apartments, and sometimes, the vague sense of movement as people lived out their lives behind these insulated walls. The disconnect from other people and from nature hit me hard, and I couldn’t wait to escape. No matter how luxurious a house is, it isn’t a cure for what we all crave: connection and community.
One of my biggest fears in life is being alone. Not alone in a temporary way, where I enjoy time by myself to read, journal, exercise, or reflect. I mean perpetual loneliness, with no visitors, no phone calls, no emails, and no social interaction for days on end. This is an epidemic that is going strong in the United States and one that is heartbreaking, as it can so easily be solved. In fact, this loneliness epidemic is so bad that the US Office of the Surgeon General issued an advisory saying humans are wired for social connection, but we’ve become isolated over time. That loneliness is more widespread than other major health issues, and is a major public health concern.
Community is key to our survival, but in modern American life, it’s become increasingly difficult to find. This is why one of my top goals in life is to maintain my interpersonal connections with friends and family, and I work hard to nourish those relationships. They are as vital to me as the air that moves through my lungs.
Think about the suburbs full of huge homes. How often do people actually see and interact with their neighbors? How much community is there? Or do we often hunker down inside our walls, entertaining ourselves with our phones and televisions? What about the people who LIVE alone and have no family and no outside interaction? There has to be a change to solve this loneliness epidemic. But how?
You would not think of a boatyard as an example of community. People don’t intentionally come to boatyards to find friends and connections. Boatyards are places where you want to finish work as quickly as possible, as boatyards aren’t nice places to live.