I had one of those defining-and-not-in-a-good-way life events occur a couple of months ago. I have an American friend who I used to work with over here. A really good guy from Illinois. He has a wry sense of humour and an easy manner, loves the outdoors, and was popular with the ladies in Japan.
He left here for another place about fourteen years ago I guess, but we got in touch again through a well-known social media network about eight years ago. He was now married, with two kids, and was teaching at a school in Mexico.
In a different era he'd be the kind of person you'd send a Christmas card once a year, with an open invitation to come and stay if he and/or his family were ever coming over your way.
Not deeply connected buddies, but friends, and a guy you could pick up with where you left off, and that you'd trust.
In the new dispensation though you send a message or two when you reconnect, and from then on interact by 'liking' a photo or post now and then, maybe dropping a comment sometimes, and he does the same to you.
I saw some time ago that there was an abrupt shift in images. Gone were the family photos. Instead, there were shots of him in the outdoors, him with his kids, him having coffee with a woman. Wow, I thought, he might've taken up with someone else. I didn't want to pry, so said nothing, but privately I was assuming he must've done a dirty on his wife.
Not long after that I posted on this particular social network a link to an article I'd read on abusive partners, and how abuse is not the simple thing those of us who are lucky enough to have good relationships might think it is. I was surprised to see that he'd liked the article. Not many others did. I sort of wondered what his story was. Again though, I didn't want to pry, so said nothing.
Anyway, a couple of months ago he posted on this social media network that it should be harder to get a gun in America. I saw the post in real time, thought, 'oh, crap. Must be another nut gone and killed a bunch of people' and told myself I should check the news.
I couldn't find anything about a mass shooting in the online papers, but a day or two later it became apparent that there had been a shooting that day: he had gone and shot himself.
It was pretty nasty.
I'm sure we would all have a pretty similar reaction to that.
The thing that got me though was that in this day and age, with this interconnectedness, with social media, with this life in real time online, that a guy could feel so alone that he could go buy a gun, post cryptically about killing himself, have no one pick up on it, have no one go and see if he was OK, perhaps have no one even message him to see if he's OK, and then go and pull the trigger, was an awful indictment of where we as societies are at.
I wondered what kind of useful function this social media serves if it can figure out things you might like to buy but blinds you to the things that matter. That it could obscure the fact that a friend is hurting, leaving him only feeling able to communicate that hurt by arcane signs, such as a change of profile images, or a pregnant 'like,' until the final decision is made, and when it is made, and in this case posted, perhaps in the hope that someone would understand and reach out, it was seen as a political statement, not for what it really was.
Anyway, it's something I'm still struggling to come to terms with. The result so far is that I've become hyper-sensitive to anything negative that a person might post, just in case it is indicative of a deeper malaise. It has become quite stressful.
I don't know what the solution to the suicide epidemic in Western countries is (the statistics for New Zealand are particularly horrific), but I've decided that you have to make as much of an effort as you can to help people.
And you know, I think I can see how wargaming could be a positive thing in this regard. A chance to get people together, a chance to introduce friends or acquaintances to something new, a chance to learn new skills, and have something you can enjoy in your own company. You have the opportunity to make mistakes, get better, put problem-solving into practice, achieve little milestones, be satisfied with your own handiwork, feel that you are making progress - but not be there quite yet, and yet that is fine - and be able to reward yourself for progress in small but satisfying ways.
It's no cure-all of course, but it could be a little part of the puzzle, and may help people in need in ways we wouldn't necessarily quite understand ourselves.
A generation ago (i.e. pre-internet), we met people face to face and the hard wiring that we all have helped us to better communicate at a more intimate level. We are designed to gain an incredible amount of information from facial expression and body language.
ReplyDeleteDistance communication across the globe by internet with people we see as friends or at least friendly, but whom are in fact total strangers at a stroke undermines the above and our internet relationships are perhaps so new, that they are under-evolved for the speed that they seem to be filling up our spare space.
We have a friend who's internet profile provides an image that some may envy, but we know that behind the profile is a truth that is not reflected in that profile at all.
This collective of dishonesty on the net impacts on others who feel their own lives are a 'bit less' than what they think others are experiencing.
It is just so hard without our hardwiring instinct to truly handle anything outside of the factual on the old interweb thingy.
In life we often select friends that connect with our hard wiring, while on the internet we only perceive that we do.
Hi my name is Norm, I am 26, very rich, highly successful and weigh-in at an athletic 12 stone. Only one of those things is true, it is up to you to guess which one :-) oh! and just to make it a little harder, perhaps I don't even use my real name on the internet, or maybe I do!
Life is indeed short and it strikes me that most of us are regularly given moments that emphasise that fact and makes us reflect, if only for a moment. I have illness in the family at the moment that sharply brings that home.
But, if we dwell on it too much, then that brings its own destructive paralysis of mind. As with all things in life, there needs to be balance, more-so perhaps as the body ages.
It often surprises and disappoints me, how often there are internet comments that are made as though the internet is somehow their back-yard and that it is okay to be derogatory to other nationalities or groups etc.
Wealth is also often openly flaunted in an assumption I suppose that the entire audience has similar opportunities as oneself. I saw a post yesterday on a forum, in which the person was making a point about not buying something, but in making the point, felt that they had to express the fact that they have a lot of disposable income (may be they do or don't, that is a different point), but the phrase itself was not necessary to the post and is directly insulting to a browser who can barely financially justify buying one game a year.
So I think there are many ways that we can help each other, but perhaps at this particular point in time, in terms of social media, we need to ensure our own media input is a little more grounded and that in daily face-to-face encounters, we just try that bit harder to be better people and make personal interaction a notably better thing than banging things out on a key board or phone (like I am doing :-) ).
This afternoon, I was visiting the hospital, there is a narrow pathway and two women are filling it, walking side by side, talking and walking towards me. I did the gentleman thing and stood very obviously to one side for around 15 seconds or so (enough time to fume!), to let them through, neither looked at me, thanked me, said kiss-my-arse or goodnight, it was just plain rude, I was invisible. I don't know whether this is a UK thing, but it is just endemic here, they should scrub the word manners out of the dictionary, as the notion has ceased to exist, whether you are driving, shopping or whatever. We could so easily give a massive boost to how we treat each other and make each other feel without really trying too hard.
It is a mass problem, but it really does start with the individual. Typing all of this reminds me of an old saying when I was a kid of 'try and do something good everyday' - that's not a bad start.
Sorry Aaron - I think my post might be longer than yours now :-)
Thanks Norm, plenty to chew over there. ‘Try and do something good every day’ is indeed a great start. Good words, and hopeful words too. Thanks.
DeleteI totally agree with your sentiments regarding social media/online interactions Norm.
DeleteI don't really know what to say about your post Aaron, but that it had an effect on me. Very sad and insightful.
Cheers.
Norm, your reply is equally as powerful as Aaron's original and provides much food for thought. Thank you.
DeleteTo come back to your post, Norm, I think you've touched on some really important issues. In Japan there is a culture of exaggerated politeness around everyday interactions, so it's very rare to experience the kind of rude and thoughtlessly unmannerly behaviour that you describe. I imagine that it would start to get you down (or angry!) with repeated exposure.
DeleteAs you say, the cues we are working from online are not hardwired into us, and our own reactions are not necessarily connected in proper tone or proportion to whatever it might be that we've encountered. It's also complicated by the fact that for many people, an online persona is just that, a persona, and so it is used to hide certain things or exaggerate others.
It must sound selfish to focus on myself when his family must be affected so much more that some guy on the other side of the world, but the thing that has kept thinking about this situation was my own reaction - I'd made certain assumptions about what was happening in his life, and had automatically assigned a certain portion of blame to him, and yet at any time I could have just sent him a message and asked how things were, or what had been happening in his life, or just to say that it looked as if his circumstances had changed and that I hoped he was doing well, and yet I didn't. It's made me re-evaluate my own attitudes, because it's not a mistake I'd like to repeat.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments Norm, and thanks also to Mr Papafakis and Jonathan for your words as well.
Best,
Aaron
I'd also like to wish you and your family well regarding the illness you mentioned, Norm. I hope that there will be a best-case scenario outcome for you all.
DeleteBest wishes,
Aaron
Thanks Aaron, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Without the face-to-face, we really have little to go on when someone makes internet comments, other than what they choose to disclose. Joining the dots is what we do by nature and a best guess is not always the right guess, it is just the best guess. It is only the final unanticipated act in this case that makes some sense perhaps of what earlier comments may have meant.
DeleteNuance is difficult to pick up on the internet, which is why jokes, banter or irony often fall flat on their face and can end up upsetting people instead of making them laugh.
If those who were physically close to your friend seemed unable to predict / prevent the final tragic act, your good self on the other side of globe could not have been expected to have either. I think you can mourn the loss of your friend without reproach.
Thanks Norm, am certainly not blaming myself or anything, but it has caused me to reflect on my own attitudes, actions, and approaches, which is, I hope, a positive thing!
DeleteThanks again for your thoughts. Much appreciated :)
Wow. That is quite shocking. I had childhood friend (actually the one who got me interested in military modelling), who I lost contact after grade school. I was hoping to someday reconnect with him,but found out he had also committed suicide. A real tragedy.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that, Dean. So many people are affected by it in some way shape or form. It's very sad.
DeleteVery powerful and thoughtful post, Aaron. Wargaming as an intervention tool could be another benefit to our hobby. Staying connected to people in the real world if only across the occasional gaming table is important. I know it is for me.
ReplyDeleteSuicide touches many and I am no exception having lost a friend and colleague a little less than a year ago. At work, he exhibited no outward signs of depression or regret and was always friendly, jovial, and helpful. Then one day, without warning, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. A tragedy that perhaps could have been avoided if someone had picked up a signal of his challenges and intervened.
Sad.
Very sorry to hear that, Jonathan. It really is heartbreaking. It's such a difficult subject to discuss too, and to find effective countermeasures is not all that simple. Condolences to you, to your colleagues, and of course to the man's family.
DeleteGood and powerful words......
ReplyDeleteThanks Fran. Probably a bit too heavy for a wargaming blog, so I might remove the post a little later. I'll see. But thanks for dropping by, for reading, and for commenting.
DeleteA powerful and thought evoking post Aaron, and I am sorry for your friend and the impact on your self also.
ReplyDeleteI hear you about the endemic within 'Western nations', the echoes of some uni lectures on a 'Contemporary Britain' module, the lecture spoke of the 'atomisiation' of society, the close knit communities of the past decades broke down into collections of individuals. People despite being surrounded by people feel so isolated it is quite a terrible thing.
I feel or hope, that at least social media will bring such things to light, allow us to process this and find a way to improve and rebuild that lost sense of community. Albeit in a new way. Technology changes faster than society's ability to catch up we may yet have positive impact from social media in time. I wonder would if such awful things were to slip past completely unnoticed without social media?
(I appologies if this reads as gibberish, I am posting too late again.)
Thanks Tony, and good points. Maybe our interactions with social media will catch up, and we'll find ways to adapt that are a better fit for our emotional / psychological well-being. Let's hope so, anyway!
DeleteFirst off, my sympathy for your loss, and Dean and Jon's as well. I am fortunate not to have lost anyone I am close to from suicide yet, but given my profession, I have had several patients commit suicide over the years, some of whom I have know for a decade or more, and believe me as their physician that is an especially bad feeling. Hopefully I have prevented more than I have failed to prevent. It can be a very difficult thing to predict, even for physicians... and suicide rates for physicians are considerably higher than that of the general population. Usually, the best thing you can do is.. to just ask; Are you feeling down, sad, or hopeless? Have you had thoughts about hurting yourself?
ReplyDeleteSocial media is a peculiar thing - on the one hand, we are having a pretty meaningful conversation here about a topic that doesn't get discussed much at all, and that's very much a good thing. In some ways, I feel quite close to a number of you here... on the other hand, as Norm observes, we put our best faces forward on social media, and that contributes to the illusion that others are far better of than we are. Also, as he astutely points out, so much of our communication, especially of FEELINGS, is non verbal. Going back to my profession again, patients sometimes resent being made to come for the office for something that they feel could be dealt with by phone, but of course not everything is what it seems on the surface, and ALL of us have had the experience of having a completely different impression of what is going on after seeing someone in person than what we had before, despite spent considerable time talking to them on the phone.
The weakening of traditional face to face interactions - friends, family, neighbors, co workers, church congregations, and the like, contributes to our increasing feelings of isolation and loneliness even as we are more "connected" impersonally to others via social media and the like than ever before. Hopefully the face to face component of our hobby is one thing that runs counter to these depressing trends!
You can surely do worse than to remind others that you love or care about them often. Oh, and ALL of us should probably have to take a serious refresher course on manners, perhaps from the Japanese! :-)
Thank you Peter, and wise words from you. As you say, it must be a very wrenching thing to encounter suicide on a professional level. From what I know of you through our interactions and your interactions with others, I'm sure you must be a very positive influence in your patients' lives.
DeleteI also absolutely agree that reminding others we love and care about them is something to not skimp on.
Thanks again for your thoughts - and I must apologise, for some reason google doesn't always seem to notify me when you comment here. It's bizarre. If I haven't replied to you on previous posts, it's not been out of arrogant disregard! :D
Thanks again,
Aaron
No worries, Aaron. This is an ongoing isssue with me for commenst left ion blogger; I will have to see if I can fix the issue with aol..
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No problem Peter, don't go to any trouble. I'm aware of it now and will just check my comments page through Blogger which will tell me when you've commented :)
DeleteLife is short. . . and we seem to learn more from loss and painful experiences than from success. I lost my mother last Christmas, and though not to suicide, it was breathtakingly unexpected and sudden. I am part of a large family, and this loss has really driven us closer together, but I find it sad that it took a profound loss to generate the closeness, and that my mother could not be part of it here. I'm guessing my experience is hardly unique. Best wishes to you, Aaron. Chris
ReplyDeleteVery sorry for your loss, Chris. As you say, it's great when the family comes together, but bittersweet when someone so important is missing. I guess this Christmas will be a pretty tough time for the family.
DeleteBest wishes to you, too. Aaron.
I must echo Jonathan's words about the importance of staying connected in the real world. Last January I sent a long-time friend of my wife's and mine a Teeshirt showing the words "Thankful, Grateful, Blessed". I didn't have a reason in mind, I just thought she might like it. She wrote me to say she had been in the throes of a profound depression, which was not lifted by occasional emails she received from friends. She said my package showed her that people did care about her; that her mood turned around, and that she was now doing well.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, I didn't have anything particular in mind when I sent it--maybe it was angel on my shoulder whispering a suggestion in my ear--I just wanted to express my friendship with something more concrete than a few lines on her email account. I'm really glad I did--and it has reinforced my feeling that it's best for me that I not wade into the social media swamp.
Thank you (and to you, Norm, and you, Jonathan) for your insight and wisdom.
Best regards,
Chris Johnson
Well, that is lovely to hear, Chris. And I bet you sure are glad you did send that parcel. I guess you never know what influence a kind gesture can have, so the more of them we can make the better.
DeleteThank you, and your story has brightened my day!
Cheers,
Aaron
A very thought provoking post and a terrible story indeed. Like many people today I have something of a love/hate relationship with Social media. I have multiple social accounts and spend a lot of time posting, reading and commenting online, often with people I have never met 'in the real'. I enjoy this sort of interaction but I agree totally that sometimes (maybe most of the time) social media doesn't bring us together rather than giving us an excuse to be apart, and that is very sad indeed.
ReplyDeleteLike you I also think our hobby has some incredible social benefits. It gives us an excuse to be in the same room as our friends, not just on the other side of a screen. As a blogger I do spend a lot of time interacting with friends in cyberspace but at its heart my hobby revolves around real human interactions, face to face at games and shows. The sad thing is that even surrounded by people depression can isolate an individual.
Thanks, Big Lee. Yes, agree with all your points. Especially sad when, as you say, even with people all around depression can isolate a person. I guess we just have to do what we can to make things better where we can.
DeleteCheers,
Aaron
Really interesting post,well done for sharing and I realise it's been tough but I think it's really good to discuss this kind of thing,why not in a wargaming space,the response you've had has I think been sensitive and considered. I would hope you do not delete this post as this is something that needs to be out and discussed.
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks very much, Iain. I'll bear that in mind.
DeleteCheers,
Aaron