Loneliness is our society’s biggest mental health challenge; it’s an epidemic. People across every age group describe feeling disconnected and alone, missing a sense of community and deep friendships.

Our reliance on technology, the fact that we spend our days interacting with screens and talking to bots, not people, working in isolation; the geographic scattering of families and the disappearance of community pillars; the overall shift in our values as a society, with “progress” having replaced contentment; all of it contributes to the situation in which we now find ourselves. People are connected around the clock, but don’t feel connected to each other. And maybe more frighteningly, we are losing the skill of even knowing how to connect, to form deep friendships and meaningful bonds.

As a therapist for over 30 years, I hear a lot about loneliness and often about loneliness that exists within relationships, the feeling so many people describe of having “friends” but not feeling particularly close to those “friends,” and the lightness and superficiality that characterizes many friendships these days. And I hear about what people really want and need from their relationships—what makes them feel connected and cared for and what makes them feel lonely. In this way, I have an inside view into what helps and heals our loneliness. That said, I want to suggest one simple practice that can move the dial when it comes to loneliness, a small gesture we can make that creates connection and can profoundly change and enrich our relationships. A small practice with an enormous impact—a profoundly powerful way to cultivate closeness, deepen, strengthen, and build connection in your friendships and relationships overall. Something it seems obvious one would do instinctively (but in fact is rarely done), a practice which, ultimately, will help you feel less disconnected and alone in a society in which disconnection and loneliness are the norm.

A case in point: Jane and Melly.

Jane texted her good friend Melly to ask if she had a moment to speak by phone. Within moments, the phone rang, and Melly was on the other end, asking what was up. Jane shared that she’d received some scary test results from her doctor. She wouldn’t know anything for a couple of weeks and would have to meet with a specialist to do follow-up testing and figure out what the next right steps would be. She was frightened, however, and Melly, at the time, was reassuring and kind.

Over the next week, the two women texted daily, as they usually did, about all sorts of topics, but not about Jane’s health situation, and not about the fear she was carrying in her heart, or the anxiety that was wallpapering all of her other activities. They just went back to their usual way of talking about regular life. The following weekend, Jane and Melly met for coffee as was their ritual on Saturday mornings. And again, Melly didn’t raise the topic of Jane’s health, ask her if she had any more information about it, or bring up how she was feeling about it. Nothing. It was just a regular conversation about their work, kids, dogs, the sports team they followed, and all the rest of life’s stuff. It had been a lively and fun coffee date, as theirs always were, but when Jane got home, she felt sad, disconnected, and profoundly lonely.

Because they were good friends, Jane decided to tell Melly how she felt, and to simply ask her why she hadn’t brought up Jane’s health situation, or followed up in some way about the heaviness and fear she was carrying in her heart. Melly felt terrible about her choice not to bring it up, but explained that she didn’t want to insert the dark topic if Jane didn’t want to think about it or “go there” at that moment. She figured that she was giving Jane some relief in getting to just chit-chat about their usual life nonsense and not having to think about the hard stuff for a bit. And if Jane wanted to talk about her fear, she would bring it up. She was being respectful, or so she thought, by giving her space and allowing her to take a break from the hard stuff.

In Part 2 of this post, I will offer an alternative to our standard way of relating and a simple but radical path to end our loneliness.

The post The Startlingly Simple Way to Not Feel Lonely appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Everything about the way we live in this society is geared to pull our attention outward and away from ourselves. We rely on external sources for information, knowledge, belief systems, entertainment, physical subsistence, codes of behavior, and everything in between.

At the same time, we’re sold the idea that our happiness will also come from the outside: acquiring external validation, material possessions, achievements, and pleasurable experiences. Over time, we come to believe that everything desirable, satisfying, and fulfilling, everything we want and need, comes from outside of us. Our focus is so habituated to go outward, in fact, that we forget that we are even here and can be a source of anything. We forget—or maybe more accurately, never learn—that we can look to ourselves for what we need.

We talk a lot about self-care in this culture, but most of what we consider self-care is some form of pampering. We see self-care as something we buy or do, something, once again, that sits outside of us—in someone else or some other activity, experience, destination, or maybe, lemongrass candle. But there aren’t enough pearls in the Dead Sea or hemp in nature to make us well. Ultimately, we must recognize that we are the destination we’ve been seeking; it is our own nectar that we think we lack.

In order for self-care to take root as a way of living, not something you buy or do, a one-off, you must be willing to consider that you know infinitely more than you’ve ever been allowed or allowed yourself to know. Both in mind, body, and spirit. And furthermore, to recognize that you are the only one who knows what’s true for you, the only one living your unique experience. In fact, while it’s the last thing the self-care industry wants you to discover, you are your most reliable source of well-being, even if you can’t imagine it yet.

But remember: The conditioning that led you to abandon yourself, to hand over your authority to others and the external world, didn’t happen overnight. Similarly, reclaiming yourself as a valuable source of wisdom also doesn’t happen overnight. Before you can see a new path, you must be able to see the path you are traveling now—all the ways you’re turning away from your truth and handing off your authority. In order to create real change, you have to be willing to challenge your conditioning and practice new behaviors.

Just as you build the habit of exercising by actually moving your body or eating healthfully by actually making healthy choices, you have to build the habit of curiosity in yourself, making yourself a destination, by doing just that: getting curious about your own experience, asking yourself what’s true for you, and caring about what you find. You have to be willing to look to yourself for answers and questions, too.

With practice, the inclination to turn towards yourself for guidance becomes second nature. But again, it doesn’t start out that way. The process of learning to trust yourself happens gradually.

Over time, you’ll likely start noticing you feel more present, more located inside yourself as if you’re living from something solid that feels like you. Without trying, you’ll find you’re speaking what’s actually true and being honest rather than saying what will secure your being liked. You’ll feel the gap closing between who you are authentically and the roles you play in your life. I’ve heard the process described in so many different ways, but what all of the descriptions have in common is a sense of taking your seat at the center of your life—coming home to yourself.

Keep inquiring into your own experience; keep spending time in your own company, listening to your truth, and tuning into your own presence. Gradually, your outward-focused wiring will shift, and your attention will start naturally returning home to you, its original source. And indeed, with intention and practice, you will become that destination, that magnificence for which you’ve always been searching.

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John is a highly educated man and was vigorously expressing a lengthy and well-defended case against the validity of the whole phenomenon that is the Me too movement.  His argument extended to issues of race and gender as well, specifically, how all of the now-prevalent identity politics is overblown, unnecessary, negative and destructive.

When he did pause, just for a moment, I snuck in an observation, namely, that the identity movement seemed to make him feel defensive and angry.  He denied feeling defensive but shared that as a teacher, the new politic did force him to be hyper-vigilant about the words he uses with students, to have to watch everything he does so as not to be wrongly accused.  I empathized with his experience and how hard it must be to be a teacher these days.  He then went back to his well-constructed case for what was faulty about the movement.

As this conversation was going on, I was also keeping an eye on his partner, Nel.  As John went on with his narrative, Nel’s expression glossed over; she had checked out, lost interest in even trying to stay present.  I understood her experience as there was nobody there, really, for her to be present with.  The possibility for connection was gone, lost behind the steel walls of intellectual content.

But I was hopeful as I had seen an opening; a little piece of John had emerged as he talked about the difficulty for teachers just now.  And so I inquired, hoping that I could get a little further than John’s teacherexperience.

“What does it trigger in you personally, having to be in the thick of it, required to participate in this dialogue and all the forms and training sessions you probably have to be part of?”  And for some reason, with that very simple invitation, within the safety of our relationship, John showed up.  In an instant, his entire facial expression shifted as if he had also not been present and now, suddenly, he was there.

John then expressed how toxic the whole thing felt for him, that he was not interested in any of it and yet was being forced to be in a conversation that was not his life, not valuable to him.  He felt terribly put upon and trapped by the whole environment of identity politics, in a constant fight about issues that he didn’t resonate with, having to prove he wasn’t guilty of something that didn’t in any way belong to him. The specifics of what he felt are less important than what happened in the couple as a result of this fresh truth that John was able to share.

Suddenly Nel was there in the room.  It literally felt like a wave of energy had wafted through the space; it was palpable.  Nel had returned, literally reentered the space behind her eyes.  In that moment, for the first time, I could see real empathy for her husband spread across her brow.   They were sharing the same space, perhaps for the first time in a decade.  Nel was looking at John with an entirely different expression, really looking at John.  Tears welled up in Nel’s eyes; connection was happening.  At last, what had been separating them all these years, all her husband’s ideas, were out of the way and she could feel him, be with him, be truly together, in real company.

John had been honing his ideas and intellect his entire life, using his arguments to validate what he was experiencing, but sadly, because of his own psychology, not even knowing or inquiring into what he was experiencing.  He had gotten quite skilled at proving his rightness, but all his ideas came at the cost of connection.  John didn’t get to feel connected to anyone or, for that matter, allow anyone else to feel connected with him.  He was an island in every way, surrounded by an ocean of mind.

Many people remain stuck in the land of contents—with the context underneath the contents rarely (if ever) reached.  Men particularly seem to get locked in their thoughts, information, and ideas, which shuts them out from their own hearts and shuts everyone else out in the process.  The feeling of being with such individuals is that of not being able to touch them, of being trapped in a corridor with no door, no way to be together, held at bay by the thoughts, opinions, and arguments, the armor that protects their hearts from ever being visible, or vulnerable.

As the partner, you are not able to connect deeply, not below the neck, beyond the layer of intellect. Since it’s not possible to join them in their experience, empathy has to happen from a distance, via an idea of what they’re experiencing but without getting to feel it with them.  For the partner of such individuals, being together is an experience of loneliness, separation, hearts that can’t actually touch, a life that can’t actually be profoundly shared.

When John expressed his personal experience, not his narrative around it, not his justification for it, not all that he knew about it, just his truth in its raw, real, and alive form, simply what he was living on the inside, as it was coming freshly in the moment, Nel felt connected to her husband, like she was at last with him.  They were together in the same now.  His intellectual defenses had stepped out of the way for a brief and blessed moment. Nel could then experience the sensation of being in true company—not being alone together. (She later confirmed this to me in an individual session.)

Couples spend decades trapped, like flies in spider webs, inside the arguments of content, and particularly who’s right, who’s justified in feeling the way they feel about the contents. They get caught, sometimes for good, in the ongoing battle for whose experience is deserving of empathy. This happens for many reasons, one of which is that we mistakenly believe that we are our thoughts and opinions.  Proving our rightness is thus a life and death struggle to ensure survival.  But such is a topic for another day.  In the interests of word count here, it’s my intention to simply point out that ideas and opinions, the stuff of mind, the generalized narrative and intellectual defense system, can serve as a non-navigate-able obstacle to connection.

Source: Vladimir Kudinov/ Unsplash

If you’re feeling that you can’t reach your partner, like you’re alone when you’re together, as if you can’t find the key to being truly with each other, notice, is your couple trapped in the land of contents—of mind—with no access to each other’s hearts.  Is your communication stuck in the land of opinions, ideas, and whether what’s happening is right or wrong, good or bad?  Notice if your relationship is waylaid in the purgatory of commentary, the airless box that it is to always be commenting on life to each other, but never in it with each other, forever a step away from your felt experience, and from each other.

If what I describe resonates, consider offering questions to your partner that contain an intention to reach the heart and uncover the real felt experience–not the story of it.  And, offer yourself the same invitation, to deepen your connection with yourself as well.

Questions that invite feelings:

-What is the experience like, for you, in that situation?

-What does that situation trigger in you?

-What does it feel like when you’re in that situation?

-What’s the worst thing, for you, when you’re in that situation?

What makes it so hard, for you, when you’re in that situation?

And, when describing your own experience, try modeling the communication style you want to receive from your partner.  For example, “For me, when that happens, I feel (such and such)” “What makes it so hard for me is…” Actively model talking about your feelings, your personal experience, rather than your narrative about the situation, maybe even naming that distinction so that your partner can hear the difference, regardless of whether he knows how to do it.  Furthermore, remember that when your partner is able to express his direct and personal experience or a fresh perhaps newly discovered feeling, be sure to offer him (or her) a safe space and supportive response. Don’t correct or dismiss his truth, no matter what it contains.  Each time he moves from the known storyline to the unknown felt experience, he is growing, taking a baby step forward.  When you respond lovingly and with acceptance, you are encouraging more steps in this direction and thus inviting a deeper connection.  True connection happens when we can communicate from our vulnerability, our hearts–not our stories and protective mental layers.  It happens when we dive into life together rather than standing on the shore, safely commenting on it. The most important journey we take in relationship, and life, is from our head to our heart.

The post Do You Feel Alone When You’re Together? How to Deepen Your Connection With Your Partner appeared first on Nancy Colier.

I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why some people refuse to say I’m sorry even when they know they’ve done something that caused harm, and even when the offense is small and seemingly not a big deal to take responsibility for. Recently, I was confronted with a friend who refused to say she was sorry for having misplaced an object she borrowed. It wasn’t there when I needed it, so what? A simple “I’m sorry” would have put the whole thing to bed in the number of seconds it took to say those two words. But those two words were never going to happen, and I, in my less-evolved incarnation, kept at it until I was exasperated, angry, and demanding an apology for something I didn’t really care about.

Boiled down, to say I’m sorry is to say that I did something wrong. For some people, admitting that they did something wrong is not possible, even when they know it was wrong, and even when they feel bad about doing what they did. It’s odd to witness, but this never-sorry person can actually be sorry and still refuse to utter the two words that would both acknowledge their remorse and right their wrong.

To be able to admit that we’ve done something wrong requires a certain level of self-esteem or ego strength. People who are deeply insecure can find it challenging to say I’m sorry in part because a single mistake has the power to obliterate their entire self-worth. The idea that they could make a mistake and still be a valuable and good person is unthinkable for someone whose self-esteem is severely lacking. An apology is an admission of fallibility, which can trigger the vast reservoir of inadequacy and shame they carry, and thus threaten the fragile narrative they’ve constructed about themselves. For a person with a damaged sense of self-worth, acknowledging error can be tantamount to annihilation.

So, too, there’s the person who was blamed relentlessly as a child, who from a young age was told they were responsible for every problem that arose and punished accordingly. As adults, such people tend to go in one of two directions. Either they apologize for everything, even things they haven’t done, or they refuse to apologize for anything, even things they have done. For those that end up the latter, they decide, consciously or unconsciously, that they will never again accept blame of any kind. They’ve closed the door to anything that holds a whiff of it. For this sort of person, saying I’m sorry puts them in touch with the feelings attached to their early experience of being deemed inescapably guilty and bad. Having been unfairly and indiscriminately held responsible for everything wrong, there simply isn’t any psychic space left for responsibility, even when it’s appropriate.

And then there are those who refuse to say I’m sorry, because they lack empathy and don’t actually feel sorry that you were hurt by their actions. They believe that an apology is only appropriate for situations in which they purposefully caused you harm. There’s no sorry deserved or indicated when the pain you felt was not intentionally caused, and thus not technically their fault. Your hurt, in and of itself, has no particular value.

I’ve touched on only three aspects of the never-sorry individual, but there are many more reasons why some people cannot or will not offer those two important words to another human being. To be able to say we’re sorry is to be able to be vulnerable, which is too scary, sad, dangerous, or any one of an infinite number of too’s for some people. To say I’m sorry is also to acknowledge that I care about how you feel, care that you were hurt. I care enough about you, in fact, to be willing to put my ego aside, stop defending my version of myself for long enough to hear your experience at this moment. I care enough about you to be willing to admit that I’m imperfect.

To receive a sincere apology is an incredible gift. We feel heard and acknowledged, understood and valued. Almost any hurt can be helped with a genuine, heartfelt I’m sorry. When another person looks us in the eye and tells us that they’re sorry for something they did that caused us harm, we feel loved and valued; we feel that we matter.

When someone apologizes to us, we also feel validated and justified for being upset. The apologizer is taking responsibility at some level for the result of their actions, intended or not. And when that happens, our insides relax; we don’t have to fight anymore to prove that our experience is valid, that we are entitled to our hurt and that it matters.

I recently told a dear friend about something she was doing that, for me, was damaging the friendship and making me not want to spend time with her. I was nervous to tell her given that I’ve been around more than my fair share of never-sorry people, who react to hearing anything negative about themselves by attacking the one bringing it. But this friendship is important to me, and I couldn’t just let it go; I needed to express what wasn’t working. I had to take the chance that telling her my truth, kindly, might lead us to a better place.

What happened was deeply healing. I told her my truth, how her behavior was painful for me. She listened, and then she said something amazing; she said I’m sorry. She was sorry she had caused this hurt, even if it was unintentional, even if she didn’t know it was happening. She went on to say many other love-infused things, but she didn’t need to, she had me at I’m sorry.

This is not an essay on how to make the never-sorry person say sorry. For the most part, I’ve failed at that task so far in my life (I’m sorry to say). What I’ve gotten better at, however, is accepting the things I cannot change and putting less energy into the fight for an apology from someone who doesn’t have the capacity to offer it. And I’ve gotten better at honoring my craving for an apology when it arises and providing myself with the kindness and legitimization I’m seeking. The more I practice awareness in the absence of apology, the less I need the apology to validate what I know to be true.

When hurt by another, our bodies are hardwired to need an I’m sorry in order to relax, move forward, and let go of the hurt. But sometimes when we can’t get the I’m sorry we think we need, we have to learn to relax on our own, without the other’s help. Trusting and knowing that our pain is deserving of kindness, because it is, and that our truth is justified and valid, because it’s our truth, is the beginning of our independent healing process.

In this season of giving, receiving, and gratitude, consider the profound value of a simple and sincere I’m sorry. When you’re lucky enough to receive a genuine apology, take it in, feel the majesty of what this other person is offering, receive their willingness to be vulnerable and accountable, to take care of you instead of their own ego. That’s big stuff. So, too, when you recognize an opportunity to say I’m sorry and mean it, relish the chance to give that experience to another, to step up and perhaps out of your comfort zone, to let go of your me story and be generous. And when you can, honor the profundity of the gift you’re giving. I’m sorry and thank you are really two sides of the same coin.

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We all want to help our friends when they are suffering. But do we know how to help them — really help them? And on the flip side, do we know how to get what we need from our friends when we really need it?

How do we fail each other as friends?

Some common offenses:

We offer advice and stick to it even when our friend tells or shows us that our advice is not helpful and not going to be followed.
We project our own experience onto our friend’s situation and stop hearing what our friend is actually living.
We are too busy or distracted to give our friend the focused attention that she needs.
We talk when we really need to be listening.
Having been at the receiving end of each of these responses at one time or another, I know how incredibly painful these experiences can be to endure. We reach out to a friend with the hope that we will be heard, comforted and ultimately helped, only to receive one of these heartbreaking misses. These moments are little deaths. There is a precise instant when we realize that we are not going to receive what we need, that we will not experience the emotional hug that we crave. Exquisitely painful in their clarity, these deaths are repeated over and over, leaving us not only with our original pain, but now, simultaneously, with the loneliness of the missed connection.

Sometimes we allow the friend’s advice to go on long after we have shut down inside, aware that we are not going to be properly heard or understood. Sometimes we allow the friend to kidnap the moment, make it about themselves, thereby giving up on getting what we really need. Sometimes we allow the friend to use us as a projection screen, to work out something about themselves or someone in their life — none of which helps us. We let it happen because we cannot fight or take the risk that it is to try and receive what we actually need.

There are an infinite number of ways to die these little deaths, but each is profoundly disappointing, even heart-breaking.

What is it we really need when we are in pain? I believe that it is much simpler than we imagine. We need to be heard, understood and cared about. We need a friend to hold our pain with us, for a moment, without judgment, to hear and care about how we are, in truth. Most of all, we need our friend’s focused, undivided, and caring attention. Not solutions, not tales of our friend’s similar woes, just the simple hug that is true and heartfelt listening.

There are times in life when our pain is very strong and we actually do not want to get together for a lunch in which we get the allotted amount of time to wrap up our suffering, and then move on to the business of trading stories. You get your five minutes, I get mine. There are times when we need to be allowed to fully dip into our pain, and not just describe it and then move on.

Here’s the good news: We can ask for the kind of focused attention that we need. We can ask if it’s possible that a good friend just hold the space and listen to us, for today, and maybe even tomorrow. We can ask if just now, we can not hear about her life situation, but really make this moment about ourselves. We are taught that it is not okay to ask for this kind of attention, that it would be selfish to request it, even occasionally. And yet, what is remarkable is that we all need it, and we all try and make do without it, pretending it’s okay. We keep our mouths shut while we die little deaths, silently, again and again, on both sides of the table. The longing is crystal clear and yet we hold back, afraid to demand too much, even from our dearest friends.

To pretend that we get what we need when we really don’t, in fact, doesn’t do us, our friends or our friendships any good. A part of friendship is taking care of and knowing each other. No one is taken care of or known when we walk away from our interactions feeling lonely and emotionally unfed.

When we request what we really need, we not only give ourselves the chance to receive the care that we long for, but we also deepen and sanctify our friendships. We set an example and standard of truth that the friendship can then rise to. I suggest that we step up and be brave — take the risk that is the truth. We can be the first to voice what we really need, knowing that deep down it is the same thing that we all really need. Ask for the best from your friends, and you will receive the best friends that you deserve.

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Eric Whitacre assembled a technological collage of sound and sight that is remarkable, but other than the fact that the project involves music and humans, it has almost nothing to do with the experience that takes place in an actual, real life choir. There is a magical and transcendent experience that happens when we come together as human beings to create music, side by side, heart to heart, an experience that Whitacre himself describes as the moment that changed his life, the first time he felt a part of something larger.

The magic and mystery of the experience is a result of living something together—co-creating and sharing an experience that unfolds before us, larger than us but containing us nonetheless.  When we come together as individuals in a creative process, we become a part of the whole, our separateness melting into the experience itself, into one another, as we become vehicles for the universe to express itself through our seemingly separate embodiments. When our body experiences this, we are fundamentally changed.

When we omit the together part of the experience—when the process no longer happens together, is no longer shared, we cut out the key ingredient in the experience, entirely change its nature—extract its very soul. As I witnessed Whitacre conducting alone in front of a black screen, in silence, watched the singers’ faces float by in individual boxes—a mosaic of separate lives pieced together in the ether, creating the illusion of togetherness, I was certain that I would rather live connection than know that I had lived it.  I wonder, is this what the future holds? It feels apocalyptic.

No matter how we try to recreate the experience of together in an end result, inserting it through a separated process, we simply cannot manufacture the experience of together.  If we want to experience the profundity that being and creating together can offer, we must actually be and create together.  Everything else is just an idea.

The virtual choir informs its participants that they have become part of something larger than themselves, that they were indeed connected.  But in the experience of living it, they were alone and disconnected.

The experience of the virtual choir, to use Whitacre’s own words, is an expression of  “Souls on their own desert islands sending electronic messages in bottles to each other.” I believe that Whitacre used this image to suggest a kind of optimism about humanity and our longing to connect. I did not find his analogy to be optimistic, nor do I see sending out electronic messages from my own desert island as an acceptable substitute for experiencing connection. To celebrate the virtual choir is to celebrate the end of the direct experience of connection, of living the actual experience we are talking about.  It is to say that going forward, we agree to be nourished by the concept of connection—to let technology live fully, while we humans stand by and hear about it, delighting in our ability to re-create something that looks like real connection—and now actually calling it real.

In one particularly chilling testimonial, a singer writes about how wonderful the virtual choir was because she got to “sing with her sister.”  A cultural amnesia is setting in, a forgetting of what direct experience actually is, what it feels like to have the experience itself.  In truth, this young woman did not sing with her sister.  She did not have the experience of singing together; her body’s cells do not contain the experience.  She sang alone, as did her sister. What she lived was something entirely different; she had the experience of knowing that recordings of her and her sister’s voices were brought together in a technological feat.  It looks and sounds like she and her sister were singing together and that simulation of reality, that notion of being together, is what she gets to take home as the experience itself.  In place of the direct experience, she gets to have an idea of the experience—and here’s the terrifying part: she believes that they are the same thing.

“People will go to any lengths necessary to find and connect with each other.  It doesn’t matter the technology,” says Whitacre.  Yes, people are desperate for connection, but it does matter the technology.  Technology is replacing the direct experience of connection with the concept and simulation of connection, and we humans are losing the capacity to tell the difference!

At one time, technology may have been intended to bring people together, to create actual connection, more time together, more personal experiences, a richer experience of life.  Regardless of its original intention, it seems that the system has flipped on itself.  People feel more disconnected, more like they are on their own desert islands, while technology gets to do all the connecting. We sit alone in our isolated pods, while the invisible wires and cables do the interacting—together.  I fear that we are losing sight of what actual connection feels like, believing that our computers’ connections are our own. The more we congratulate ourselves on our ability to simulate the experience of being human, the more, little by little, the direct experience of being human slips away.

After listening to the virtual choir, I am left with a haunting echo, and I cannot help wonder if the haunting comes not only from the poignance of the music, but also from the poignance of what’s being lost, from the experience of virtual connection itself—the sound of humans singing alone into empty rooms, like lost birds calling out for their mothers to find them, to save them from the loneliness, and bring them home.

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