Jacqueline Olds

Alarming trends: 1 out of 4 americans confided in "no one" in the last 6 months; more people rather talk a/b being "depressed" instead of being "lonely"; B. Ehrenreich's "cult of busyness" as a badge of honor; "cocooning inside their own homes and the absence of witnesses"; fathers not wanting to be like their dads so they spend more time with their kids/family but at what costs to their social relationships; "being neighborly used to mean visiting people; now being nice to your neighbors means not bothering them." Well-written discussion on the increasing social disconnection and drifting in our society and what we can do about it by two psychiatrists, who also happen to be married to one another. The importance of "staying limber." (Odd note: Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" actually makes many of the same points albeit disguised behind crude toilet humor. Apatow's films seem rude, crude and obnoxious on the surface, but just beneath are some real relevant topics facing men today. I am thinking of "Superbad.") Related tags: Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, Philip Slater's Pursuit of Loneliness, Emerson's "self-reliance", Robin Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip & The Evolution of Language, neuroscience, neurobiology of attachment and "being left out", oxytocin, outsider myth, overexuberant individualism, marriage & high expectations, children's emotional problems, substance abuse, global warming.… (mer)