We all want to Help one another — Human Beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's Happiness, not by each other's Misery.
We don't want to Hate and Despise one another.
In This World there is room for everyone —
The Good Earth is Rich, and can provide for everyone —
The Way of Life can be Free and Beautiful —
But We Have Lost The Way.
GREED has poisoned Men's Souls — has barricaded The World with Hate,
Has goose-stepped us into Misery and Bloodshed.
We have developed Speed, but shut ourselves IN.
Machinery that gives Abundance has left us In-Want.
Our Knowledge has made us Cynical — Our Cleverness, Hard and Unkind.
We THINK too much, and FEEL too little.
More than Machinery, We need Humanity.
More than Cleverness, We need Kindness and Gentleness.
Without these qualities, Life would be Violent and All Would Be Lost.
The Aeroplane and The Radio have brought us closer together —
The VERY NATURE of these inventions cries out for The Goodness in Men —
Cries out for Universal Brotherhood, For The Unity of Us All —
Even now, My Voice is reaching millions throughout The World —
Millions of despairing Men, Women and little Children —
Victims of a System that makes Men torture and imprison Innocent People.
To Those Who Can Hear Me, I Say — Do Not Despair.
The Misery that is now upon us is but The Passing of Greed —
The Bitterness of Men who fear The Way of Human Progress.
The Hate of Men will pass, and dictators die,
and The Power They took from The People Will return to The People.
And so, so long as Men die, Liberty will •never• perish.
On the 23rd March 2020, the UK government instructed lockdown due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Those over 70, classed as ‘clinically vulnerable’, were told to self-isolate until further notice.
Those over 70, classed as ‘clinically vulnerable’, were told to self-isolate until further notice.
The lack of clarity as to how long this may go on for left many feeling frustrated at the government’s dismissive attitude toward a generation that often already feel overlooked.
A ‘shut them away’ type approach which many feared would lead to increased feelings of loneliness and wavering mental health.
A ‘shut them away’ type approach which many feared would lead to increased feelings of loneliness and wavering mental health.
For my grandmother, Jen, now in her 80s, and many other elderly people living in Mount Hawke in Cornwall, seeing friends, going to church, attending the coffee morning and hopping on the bus to Morrisons on a Thursday provided routine, brought them joy, and gave them a Sense of Purpose.
Simple yet vital expressions of autonomy that have now been taken from them.
Simple yet vital expressions of autonomy that have now been taken from them.
Within A Mile follows my grandmother during lockdown on her daily walk around the block as she defies, in her own way, what it means to be ‘clinically vulnerable’.
Despite government restrictions, Jen is determined to socialise and stay engaged with her community and friends around her. Like many, she has had to adapt to a much smaller, localised environment, and through restricting this to a mile radius, she becomes more attuned to her surroundings; taking great pleasure in observing things previously overlooked, whether it be watching a bird looking for spiders out of the ends of drainpipes, or the light and wind dancing over a field.
It became apparent, when following my grandma and the other residents, that the idea of contracting the virus is less daunting than the prospect of feeling completely isolated.
‘I don’t care about the virus’, said a woman as she stepped out of her front door to greet Jen with open arms, ‘I need to hug your grandmother’.
This brings to light our instinctive desire and need, as humans, to touch and be in each other’s company.
I’ve never forgotten about a series of experiments that were done by a man named Harry Harlow in the 1950s. He was seeking to understand the human need for love, and the critical role that it plays in both primate and human development, so he separated a group of baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers when they were born.
The baby monkeys were each caged alone in the lab and allowed no physical contact with the personnel in the lab or with each other even though they could see the other monkeys and personnel. They immediately began exhibiting signs of distress. They clutched themselves, began rocking, staring into space as if dissociating, biting themselves, and biting their cages. They did not play or groom themselves and they seemed vacillate between anxiety and depression.
The babies were then assigned to one of two fake surrogate mothers. One was a model made of chicken wire that was covered in soft terrycloth. It was made to look roughly like a monkey. This surrogate did not provide any food. The other surrogate mother was also made of chicken wire, but no terrycloth. It had a crocodile looking head and provided milk from an attached baby bottle.
To say that the babies favored the mother covered in terrycloth is an understatement. The comfort these babies received through touch contact was incomparably more important to them than even their physical hunger. They needed connection more than they needed nourishment. This is also the case for people, not just monkeys. If our need for nourishment was stronger than our need for connection with one another, we would not meet people who can’t eat or sleep when they experience a painful break-up with someone they loved.
There is another unforgettable research study that I learned about in my university courses. It was a study done in the United States in the 1940s and was conducted on 40 newborn infants. I clearly remember that the objective was to determine whether individuals could thrive on basic physiological needs alone, without physical affection.
Twenty of the newborn infants were housed in a special facility where caregivers would enter the facility to feed them, bathe them, and change their diapers, but they would do nothing else. The caregivers had been instructed not to look at or touch the babies more than what was necessary and never communicate with them. All their physical needs were attended to scrupulously and the environment was kept sterile so as to prevent any of the babies from becoming ill.
The experiment was stopped after four months because by that time, at least half of the babies had died. More babies subsequently died even after being rescued and brought into natural familial environment. There was no physiological cause found for the deaths of these babies. They were all physically very healthy.
I specifically remember that one of the most disturbing facts was that before each baby died, there was a period of time where they would stop verbalizing and stop trying to engage with their caregivers. They would stop moving, stop crying, and stop changing their expression and death would follow shortly after. It was as if the babies had given up living before they died. This was the case even for the babies who died after being removed from the experimental conditions.
In today’s world, we are obsessed with technology. It’s hard to go anywhere and find people who are genuinely engaged with one another. Most people are fully engaged instead with a technological device. Their noses are buried in their computers or cell phones.
And while social media has provided incredible opportunities to be connected with each other around The World, no matter where we are, social media only provides connection up to a degree.
Physical connection cannot be replaced and its importance can’t be underestimated.
We can’t get physical contact through a screen or from a distance.
We need touch.
We need vicinity.
We need the comfort of being in physical contact with one another.
And we must consider this when we are developing connections in our life.
The reality is that as humans, we need touch.
Even the people, who are the most afraid of and hurt by human connection, need it.
This is why the loneliest and most deeply hurt people experience so much torment.
If we didn’t absolutely need touch and we were hurt by people, we would simply go on our merry way and never touch other people again.
But we can’t.
Instead, if we’ve been hurt by others, we spend our life in a torturous tug of war between The side of us that needs other people
and
The side that wants to be able
to have nothing to do with them.
