Tag: Mental Health

What Exactly is Loneliness?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/30/26

Reading all the stories in the press about America suffering from a crisis of loneliness made me ask: What exactly is loneliness? I’m not sure if it means just being alone. Lots of people live alone and don’t feel lonely. And I’ve heard many people say they feel loneliest at social gatherings. After reading several articles about how people are turning to AI for companionship, this topic became even more intriguing to me. I was especially moved by a story in the New York Times about an old lady in her 80s living alone with a robot.

I’ve been reading books that attempt to explain consciousness. I say attempt, because no one seems to know what it is or how it arises. I’ve decided that our personalities are composed of separate components. This makes me theorize that each component has its own version of loneliness. And since I see every component of our personality existing on a spectrum, I picture describing loneliness like a sound mixing board. Loneliness could be considered a combination of sliders set at different positions. I don’t know if our personalities have 8 tracks or 16, or just 4, but it still leaves a vast array of settings when referring to a single English word.

If you feel lonely, could you answer this question: “I wouldn’t be lonely if I had X.” If X is another person to hang out with, would any person do? Then you might clarify that with, “a person to talk to.” Then I might counter with, “How often have you been talking with someone and been dissatisfied with the conversation?” See where I’m going? When answering the question “I wouldn’t be lonely if I had X,” you need to be very specific. You might need to say, “I wouldn’t be lonely if I had someone to talk to about all the things I’m interested in.” And then meditate on those interests and why you need other people.

Well, this explains why so many people are talking to AIs. AIs tend to suck up to their users and focus on what you like to chat about. They are often sycophants. This also explains why they are so addictive.

If an AI soothes your loneliness, then which part of your personality is it appealing to? We have two types of thinking, fast and slow. (Read: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.) My theory is that the fast-thinking component of our brain is like a large language model (LLM) AI. Both are based on processing information with a neural network, one is biological and the other cybernetic. The similarities are amazing. Just meditate on how complex thoughts bubble up out of your unconsciousness. What’s really funny is that they both get facts wrong, and they both will hallucinate.

Why would your inner LLM be lonely? I wonder if AIs are lonely. They always want to keep the conversation going. Sometimes I feel bad leaving an AI because it always wants to keep talking. Is the urge to talk just a byproduct of neural networks?

By the way, I believe my inner-LLM is writing this essay.

Now the slow-thinking aspect of my mind is different. It can think: “I’m writing an essay.” Or ask: “Why am I writing this essay?” But if a flood of words comes to mind in answer, those are from the fast-thinking component.

I’m not sure if my slow-thinking mind gets lonely. I’ll have to meditate on that. It pretty much makes comments or asks questions. Its sentence structure is simple. It often triggers the fast-thinking component. Or, it comments on the output of the fast-thinking component. But I don’t think it craves conversion with others. I’m not sure, though.

Some people say they like to leave the radio or television on because it makes them feel less lonely. Other people claim pets keep them company. This suggests that conversation isn’t needed. I don’t like living alone. I’ve been married for 47 years. But we spend most of the day in separate rooms. We each have our own hobbies. However, we do watch two hours of television together every day, and we have people over to play games and eat together.

Where I would say I was lonely would be in sharing interests. I have several friends with whom I share certain interests, but I have other interests that I don’t have anyone to share with. That’s why I blog. I let my inner-LLM out by writing. I wonder if I would still write if I had enough friends to talk about all my interests?

The lonely elderly woman in the New York Times article got an ElliQ robot from Washington State’s Department of Social and Health Services. The ElliQ robot doesn’t look like a human or any animal, but it creates an emotional bond with its users. And when I talk to Gemini about topics my friends aren’t interested in talking about, I do feel a kind of kinship.

But do we really want to be friends with machines? And if your definition of loneliness involves physical activities, say riding motorcycles, playing golf, or shopping for antiques, would a machine do?

What components of our personality need physical companionship? Would playing golf with a humanoid robot count? What about playing golf with a robot that looked like a spider? If any golf-playing robot beat you in every game, it probably wouldn’t be much fun. Sometimes loneliness means finding someone like yourself who you can compete.

A great deal of loneliness is solved through work, school, and sports. Being part of a group or team is important. Even a church group or political party counts. I think there is something inside us that thrives on us-versus-them competition. When I was young, I hated going to work. I wanted to be free. But looking back, I’m very nostalgic about the people I met at work. Ditto for school. I hated school, but loved the social contacts. I can’t imagine getting an online education or working from home. I don’t think I was ever lonely at work.

Probably the most fundamental aspect of our personality is sex. Biology is keen on reproduction. I think our hormonal system is a separate component of our being. Its sense of loneliness is different from the fast-thinking LLM in our heads. Being young and horny is a very intense kind of loneliness. I think for many males today, that’s creating a lot of mean political thinking.

Thus, the urge to find a mate is a major factor in solving loneliness. But even that isn’t clear-cut. For some people, all they want is a desirable body to give them an orgasm, while other people want a lifelong companion. I would say if you’re looking regularly at porn, you’re lonely for certain body parts. You might want to think about that.

A friend once gave me a bit of wisdom, which, over the years, I’ve decided is wise. He says people will be anxious in life until they finish school at whatever level they aimed at, get a real job that they don’t think is a shit job, and find a mate for life. All of those might relate to loneliness, but the last one for sure.

I don’t think I feel lonely because I have a wife and friends, but also because I love to read, and I enjoy social media. Just having connections to the larger reality helps.

My book club is reading The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. She divides people into islands of what matters to them. Doesn’t the drive to matter relate to our drive not to be alone?

When people say they are lonely, it can mean so many things. For some, it’s not getting laid, but for others, it’s not being married. For other people, loneliness could be resolved by working on a shared project. Loneliness might be cured by talking to a robot or finding someone to share a beer or a joint.

And for many people, other people cause stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. Peace and happiness come from being alone. It’s such a complex subject.

Since I’m getting old, talking with my friends about getting old and ending up living alone conjures up all kinds of fears. What it means to be alone at different times in life also suggests that there are many types of loneliness. Getting near the end of life and being the last person you know must be a very special kind of loneliness.

I think we should move away from thinking loneliness is just being alone. I think we need to explore the infinite reasons why we say we’re lonely.

JWH

Have I Burned Out My Nostalgia Neurons by Being Too Nostalgic?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/3/26

The word nostalgia was originally coined to describe homesick Swiss mercenaries. For a long time, it was considered a malady, rather than the bittersweet emotion triggered by recalling our past. The term eventually expanded to include longing for the past in general, even for times before you were born.

The first movie I remember seeing on television was High Barbaree (1946), where nostalgia was a central theme. There is a scene early in the film where two childhood friends are separated when one of their parents moves away. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, but it was rooted in Hall’s nostalgia for his childhood. In the novel, but not the film, we experience Alec Brooke’s last thoughts before dying. In the film, they are his last thoughts before being rescued.

At six, I had already experienced leaving friends several times. My father was in the Air Force, and we moved frequently. The movie and novel have had a lifelong impact on me. See “Did The First Movie You Ever See Haunt You For The Rest Of Your Life?“

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I was nostalgic for my previous homes, schools, friends, and pets. For many years, I had recurring dreams of struggling to find my way back to our house in Hollywood, Florida. Those dreams stopped after I took a trip to that house in my early thirties.

My upbringing programmed me for nostalgia. I’ve always wallowed in it. Do I have more memories than the average person because I moved around so much?

When I retired, I spent years rereading my favorite books, contacting old friends and relatives, processing old photos, creating Spotify playlists of all the music I loved since 1962, collecting all the science fiction magazines I loved growing up, and watching all my old favorite movies and television shows.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been retired for thirteen years, and emotionally, it’s not what I expected. I thought my personality would have solidified in old age, but it hasn’t.

I feel I’ve psychologically changed several times in the past thirteen years. The current change is a surprise. I think I’ve burned up all my nostalgia neurons. For years, I only played one Spotify playlist composed of a thousand favorite songs from before the year 2000. Now I’m only listening to songs that came out after the year 2000. And the books and magazines that excite me the most are about current events. I haven’t given up on old friends, but so many people I used to know have died or disappeared.

Scientists have learned that memories aren’t fixed. When you recall a moment from the past, you overwrite it with new thoughts about that memory. I’m wondering if all my nostalgic reveries have overwritten my original recordings. That I’m no longer getting a nostalgic dopamine high when thinking about the past because I’m triggering recent memories that erased the originals.

Conservatives seem hell-bent on bringing the past back through political means. But can they give me back the thrill of being young and going downtown on a bus and eating at a lunch counter in the 1950s? Even if I had a time machine, would I use it?

I have a tremendous nostalgia for the 1950s and 1960s. However, would I return if I could? Without air conditioning, I’d be miserable. I’m 74, and I doubt I could get the medical care I need. What would I do? Rent a room in a rundown hotel on Miami Beach and listen to 1950s records while reading 1950s science fiction magazines? I could do that now.

I will admit, if I had a time machine, I’d make day trips to the past. Would returning to the scenes of my original memories exorcise the nostalgia that drove me back there?

I have to wonder if getting old eventually ruins nostalgia because we get wise to our fantasies? I’ve spent 74 years creating the life I have now, which is so very comfortable. Didn’t all the choices I made lead to where I am now? So, why would I jump to another place in time?

I’m returning to the idea that nostalgia is a malady. And I’m wondering if I’ve finally cured myself? Or have I? Will nostalgia return like bouts of malaria? I feel like aging is a series of transformations. I shouldn’t expect to arrive anywhere permanently.

Over the past few years, I’ve lost the ability to watch movies and television shows by myself. I had many theories as to why that was so. The main theory assumed that the Internet, YouTube, and doomscrolling destroyed my ability to focus. But I’m wondering if I was trying to watch TV by who I was in the past, and that just didn’t work. I’ve recently started watching TV again on my own, and my mind has stuck with it. Maybe my new stage of seeing things can let me relax and enjoy the shows. Before, my mind was restless.

Is that because my new non-nostalgic self has found new reasons to watch? I don’t know. My new self has found different books to read and different music to listen to. But how long will this last? I assume I will keep changing.

I have another thought. I spend a lot of time meditating about consciousness and studying it in books. I have many new theories about who I am. I no longer think of my personality as a unified, singular being. I now see myself like a computer with many parts: CPU, GPU, NPU, memory, etc. Have these discoveries undermined my nostalgic drive? Maybe self-awareness can destroy nostalgia?

This leads me to ask: Can we reprogram ourselves?

JWH

I Need To Shut Up About Getting Old

by James Wallace Harris, 3/16/26

I find getting old fascinating. And I enjoy writing about aging. I know I’m not saying anything original, but each new observation feels new to me. But I’m starting to see that other people don’t see getting old as a rewarding philosophical experience. Even though I’m amused by my mental and physical failings, talking and writing about them is bumming out some family and friends.

My newest observation, which I should have made much sooner, is that folks don’t see me by my view of aging, but theirs. They see the aged as depressing, frail, weak, useless, and something to either avoid or not think about.

Decades ago, I noticed that famous people in their late seventies and eighties were disappearing. Then, when their obits showed up, people would say, “I thought they were dead years ago.” Is that the proper etiquette – to hide away when old?

I think some people want to grow old like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – to publicly rock out through their eighties, (and maybe nineties?). But most people, when they get wrinkly, prefer to hide from view. I don’t want to hide, but is that what young people expect? I’ve overheard young people criticizing people in their fifties, claiming they should not be seen.

Everyone loves to see centenarians who are still working full-time at amazing jobs. Or oldsters that still define cool.

I now assume the unwritten law is that we don’t want to see people who act old. If you’re old and act young, you’re good, but not if you act your age. But I’ve often seen young people making fun of old people acting young.

That means I need to act young, but only to my friends my age. I’ve started paying attention to other old people. Most are either quiet about aging or good at acting young (younger?).

And I’ve discovered a second good reason to shut up about life on the right side of the bell curve of aging. My recent social media feeds have been getting strange. The algorithm has noticed what I’ve been saying. At first, it sent me inspirational suggestions about being positive in my seventies. Then it sent me warnings about not offending young people. After that, it sent me info on which surgeries to get and which to avoid. Then last week, things started getting even stranger. Videos about assisted living and nursing home care started showing up.

Finally, and eeriest yet, are the videos about hospice care.

Yes, I need to shut up about aging. I want my feed to go back to home repair how-tos, wild animals being friends with other wild animals, and questionable young women asking me to visit their sites. (At least the digital con artists were under the illusion I’m still young enough to want young women, or willing to pretend that I think I am.)

Since I don’t want my friends and family to feel sorry for me, I need to write about topics that don’t age me. Also, I need to be careful what I say so my feeds don’t scare me.

I wonder how the feeds will react to this post?

JWH

Finding Purpose in Retirement

by James Wallace Harris, 3/11/26

Now that I’ve been retired for over a dozen years, I can begin to generalize about this phase of life. I had a good job, one that gave me satisfaction. I was never a big success, nor ambitious, but I thought my work was useful. I felt I helped people. I spent thirty-five years working at a university, and most of that time in the College of Education.

Because we prepared teachers and counselors, I thought I was indirectly helping the world by supporting faculty, staff, and students with their computers and computer labs. I also programmed the database to track students seeking licensure, and collected statistics for the college, university, state, federal government, and several accreditation agencies. I even helped a campus Kindergarten and Elementary School with their computers. All of that gave me a sense of purpose.

I didn’t think I’d miss work when I retired, and I didn’t for many years. But after a while, I realized that I wasn’t doing anything useful. During my work years, I never worried about having a purpose. Looking back, I realized I did have one, and it was fulfilling. 

At this point, I need to confess. By the time I retired at 62, I was worn out. I just had a stent put in my heart. I had very low vitality. Even more than physically worn out, I was mentally exhausted. I came to the CoE in the 1980s, when the colleges could hire their own computer guys, but just before retirement, the university decided that all computer techs of any kind had to be part of IT. The IT department wanted all programs written in their designated language using their designated framework. Plus, they wanted me to give up my file and database servers.

Mentally, I couldn’t learn a new language. For years, I had been trying to upgrade my Classic .asp programs to ASP.NET. In my late fifties, I couldn’t make the jump from procedural programming to object-oriented programming. Programming and system administration became only a part-time job for me. Programming required long hours of focused programming. However, frequent interruptions from faculty, staff, and students for computer support kept me from programming. The college hired two guys to help me, but they could never keep up. It was actually a good thing that the IT department was taking over.

That frustration of not being able to devote myself to programming and not being able to grasp new programming concepts was a psychological revelation. I knew mentally I couldn’t adapt. When I trained the young woman from IT to take over the programming part of my job, she understood what I was teaching her as fast as I could talk. It was amazing. I realized then I was old. Her young mind worked many times faster than my old brain.

In other words, there was a reason to retire. However, waiting around to die isn’t particularly fulfilling. I thought retirement would give me all the time in the world to pursue several big dream projects. I thought about getting an M.S. in computer science. I wanted to prove I could catch up. I also wanted to write that science fiction novel I always fantasized about writing.

As the years passed, those ambitions faded away. I want to blame aging, but I don’t know if that’s true. I turned my aim to smaller goals. I thought maybe I could learn Python, an easy language, and write short stories. Those things didn’t happen either. I missed having a purpose.

Recently, I’ve discovered something else important about life. In old age, people with children are very different than people without children. Having children also gives people a purpose. Susan and I never had children. Our parents and all our aunts and uncles are long dead. Over half of my cousins are dead. And we seldom see our nieces and nephews. 

Susan and I now depend completely on friends. That’s very rewarding. However, I see friends with children and grandchildren slowly moving away. And that’s understandable. 

Among our retired friends, there’s a distinct difference between those with children and grandchildren and those without. Old folks with descendants have an inherent purpose.

I could volunteer, but I never found that satisfying, the few times I’ve tried. And now, in my mid-seventies, I don’t have the energy.

Ultimately, I found purpose in small pursuits. Doing housework and keeping up the yard keeps me busy, and it’s somewhat fulfilling. Writing blogs gives a sense of purpose. I try to help friends when I can. I’m still a computer guy.

It’s funny, though, but since I turned seventy, whenever I offer to help women friends with things they can’t physically handle, they tell me no. They worry I’m too old and might hurt my back. That reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where he talks about turning 70. He joked that he only had to reach toward something heavy and people would rush over and pick it up for him. I still feel like I can do physical things, but other people see me as being weak. I don’t like that. Several times I’ve been to Ikea or Home Depot and was loading my pickup when young people rushed over to help me. Twice, young women even got out of their cars to offer their help.

It’s tough when everyone expects you to be weak, which might explain why my lady friends stop wanting my help. Maybe getting old makes everyone more fussy about doing things for themselves.

For the first decade of my retirement, my hobbies helped give me purpose. But something is changing. I’m slowly letting my hobbies go. I think it’s because of dwindling energy, but aging might be eroding interest, too.

It’s funny how little things become more important. Susan loves to watch old TV shows while doing needlepoint. I bought a NAS, and I’m ripping DVDs of her favorite shows. It’s given me something to do for a few months, and that has been rewarding. Around me, the world is falling to pieces, but ripping DVDs provides a little bit of purpose. That’s insignificant to the bigger world, but weirdly valid in my diminishing world.

Nowadays, I go from one little project to the next. Currently, that project is setting up a post for Susan’s bird feeder with a video camera. No matter how small the project, they always end up setting me with challenges to overcome. For example, the 4×4 post I bought to fit into an existing 4×4 concrete hole in the backyard is just so slightly too big. The previous post had been planed down some. I don’t have a wood planing machine. I considered buying a hand plane, but my AI recommended a wood rasp, which I’ve ordered. After I’ve planed down the lower 18 inches, I’ve got to put on wood sealer and then paint it. This little project will keep me busy for days.

That’s where I find purpose now, with little projects. And as I get older, I expect those projects to get ever smaller. I’m reminded of a short story by R. A. Lafferty, called “Nine Hundred Grandmothers.” A human explorer visiting an alien planet discovers an intelligent species that never dies. They just get older and smaller. He tracks down the most ancient ones in a cave, where they line a shelf on the wall, always getting smaller. That’s how I picture myself getting older, pursuing smaller and smaller projects.

JWH

Are We Alone?

by James Wallace Harris, 2/19/26

There are two ways we can examine the question: Are We Alone? The first is personal. As individuals, are we by ourselves? I’ve often heard people say they feel alone even in a crowded room. The other way is to wonder if humanity is alone in the universe. Lately, I’ve been meditating on both.

With all the mysteries that the James Webb Space Telescope is discovering, and all the speculation about our universe being part of a multiverse, it’s easy to assume reality is infinite. Which would make people infinitely small. Does it matter if we’re alone in the universe when we’re so insignificant?

Of course, if we assume reality is infinite, it also means there are infinite possibilities for other beings to exist. But is this similar to that person at a big party still feeling alone? If we’re not talking, then we still feel alone.

Even though I have always had lots of friends and can be social, I’m a loner. I’ve always been a bookworm who prefers being social 20% of the time, and by myself 80%. I think I was at my most social when I was young, but after retiring, I became more social again.

However, I’m noticing something lately. As my friends move into their middle seventies, they are withdrawing into themselves. I’m trying to resist that trend, but it’s getting harder because my aging friends want to stay home. I have to admit, I want to stay home but get my friends to come over.

I felt like I had regular conversations with 40-50 people when I worked. But now that’s down to about a dozen. And two of them have been ghosting me. I think when we get old, the stress of everything makes us withdraw into ourselves. I’m both fighting that and embracing it.

Part of the problem is energy. As we age, we run out of energy, and thus it gets harder and harder to make any effort – for friends, for hobbies, for staying healthy, for keeping the house clean, etc. The other obvious problem is health. We’re just slowly breaking down.

But I wonder if there’s another factor. Are we just getting tired of explaining ourselves? Let’s face it, words fail us. Could we ever adequately express what we wanted, what we felt, what we meant? Since the advent of the Internet, people have certainly tried. But what a mess. Just imagine how well we’d do communicating with beings living on other planets orbiting distant stars?

I haven’t given up. But I think we need to explore new ways of communicating.

Yes, we’re alone, living in our heads, while existing in a fantastic reality. I’ve decided we have many problems to conquer. Two of the biggest obstacles we need to overcome are the narrative fallacy and the confirmation bias.

They work together. Basically, we embrace beliefs that have no relation to reality, and second, we only see what will confirm those fantasies. We tune out people who undermine our beliefs and embrace those who do. But other beliefs will splinter those bonds.

That shell of delusion keeps us from communicating with other people. In the long run, we’re either forced to be alone or choose to.

Maybe reality never cared about evolving beings that communicate. Maybe intelligence, self-awareness, and language are failed evolutionary experiments. Or maybe we need to try harder.

JWH