Disconnection and The Age of Anxiety
The Tower of Babel, Exile, and Domicide
In Welcome to 150 Dunbar Street I made the following claim. “In this hyper-connected world people feel anxious and isolated.”
This post is to begin exploring anxiety in relation to connection.
The Tower of Babel
And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech."- Genesis 11: 6-7
The Tower of Babel is a story of disconnection. Firstly though, it reveals the power of connection “…nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”
As the story goes, a united human race was building a city and tower to reach heaven perhaps to avoid a second great flood, or to gain divine wisdom. Either way God was displeased and to prevent humanity from this great achievement he disconnected them by creating languages. As a result the people were scattered across the Earth unable to understand each other.
Excommunication is still practiced today. When a person is excluded from the communion of believers.
You don’t have to believe in the literacy of the tale to understand the significance of the metaphor. We are creative, powerful, productive, able to solve any problem when we work together. We are disempowered when separated.
Exile and Outlaws
Exile (φυγή, literally ‘flight’) is permanent or long-term removal from home, tribe, or community.
In Ancient Greece it was considered a fate worse than death and a standard punishment for committing murder. This makes sense when your chances of surviving alone in the wilderness were close to zero. Something much more common in the past.
But exile is more than physical dislocation, it is disconnection from those you love, from your cultural roots, and from all that is familiar. It is isolation, being forced into a world you don’t understand, where meaningful connection is difficult or impossible. A world that is dangerous, even fatal, and without the protection of home, of the tribe, of the community.
A similar concept is that of the outlaw, when a person is deemed outside of the protection of the law, and at the mercy of all that they encounter.
Although exile and outlawry are no longer practiced in most countries, prisoners are still punished further by being placed in solitary confinement. Even when the only company you have are potentially dangerous people it is still considered worse to be separated from them. This speaks volumes to our basic human need for connection.
“Solitary confinement, that is the confinement of a prisoner for more than 22 hours a day without meaningful human contact…” Association for the Prevention of Torture.
I find the inclusion of meaningful in the above definition from the APT both profound and beautiful. It is not just connection that matters, but the quality of connection.
Domicide - The Destruction of Home
In 337 BC Alexander the Great was exiled from Macedonia. A year later he took the throne and in the following decade created an empire.
In 324 BC, a year before his death, Alexander created the Exiles Decree. Citizens of Greek cities that had been exiled would be able to return home. In many cases this meant the occupiers would now be displaced.
After his death, and without a successor to maintain power, war broke out across Alexander’s empire, war that lasted the best part of 300 years. A continuous struggle for power which physically, culturally, politically, and emotionally displaced entire populations.
This was the Hellenistic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the death of Cleopatra VII (30 BC).
As control of territory changed hands over night, you could go to sleep in a place you call home and wake up in a place that now rejected you. Domicide, the destruction of home, the loss of belonging and meaning was ever present.
John Vervaeke, in “Awakening from The Meaning Crisis. Episode 14”, describes the experience of domicide as the loss of deep connection to self, to each other, to environment, to history, to political participation, and to cultural surroundings.
The people affected by domicide began to feel insignificant. The destruction of home was real for many and went on for centuries. It was devastating. The Hellenistic period was known as an Age of Anxiety.
In this hyper-connected world people feel anxious and isolated
The forced denial of deep and meaningful connection has been used as a form of punishment for millennia. The consequence of losing one’s sense of home, whether that be as a result of exile, war, or of more personal conflict leads to anxiety and isolation.
This is happening in our current time, despite the internet and smartphones enabling us to dramatically increase the quantity of connections we have to others.
But what about the depth and quality of those connections?
Are our mirror neurons being activated? Our touch-based bonding mechanisms employed? Do we have deep and meaningful connections with our Twitter, IG, TikTok and Facebook followers, or our substack readers? Do we even have a deep connection with ourselves? Or are we too distracted by dopamine inducing notifications, fear inducing news cycles, and gamified relationships?
We live in a hyper-connected world. At the same time many of us are experiencing the impact of a divisive cultural conflict. People feel politically homeless, culturally confused, historically displaced. Relationships are impacted, even destroyed, friendships lost and family ties dissolved. The very bonds that enrich our lives are threatened, it is not surprising that we turn to the promise of connection through technology.
I have experienced this myself on many occasions, a sense of isolation and anxiety. A lack of belonging or meaning. When it happens I reach out to others, to connect, to feel compassion and love, to regulate my emotions. I used to dive into social media, dating apps, or watch TV or podcasts - it didn’t work for me.
I’ve learned to turn to those that know me, that I have a genuine connection to. They are not many in number but they truly count. It means being more vulnerable, exposing that which I seek to protect within myself to those that can heal or hurt me.
The results are so much better, my life is richer, more meaningful. I feel I belong, I am connected, I have support and I can grow. I am happy, I am loved.
We must seek the deep and meaningful.
Many of us are exiles in our own bedrooms, on our own sofas, seeking connection in the wrong places. The quality of our connections are arguably worse even if the numbers are up.
It is hardly surprising that in a hyper-connected world people feel anxious and isolated. But there is a path we can chose to follow. It is a path of quality over quantity, to seek the deep and meaningful. Let’s explore that path together.
In the next 150 Dunbar Street I will be collaborating with The Hermit Coach to explore meaningful voluntary solitude. How we need time alone, unplugged, to self-regulate and develop our connection to ourselves.