Are you lonely or just alone?

Making friends is difficult.  It is more so the older you get.

According to Gallup, over 300 million people globally don’t have a single friend, and one in five don’t have friends or family that they can count on when needed

Why?

I saw a little boy at a cafe going to meet another boy, and they instantly became friends. Watching how the Muslim boy was teaching the other (I assume Irish heritage) little man his name was fun. The ginger boy, Brendan, repeated the name a couple of times and got it right: Farid.

Why do we lose this instant, nonjudgemental curiosity about others?

Is it fear?

Are we afraid of rejection? Or are we afraid of being used or manipulated? Or do we think that we lose something if we open our hearts to strangers?

Yes, yes and yes. Guilty as charged.

Over the decades, all the abuses, mistreatments, misunderstandings, and exploitation we have experienced pile up as a high wall around us. It protects us by isolating us.

It is safer to be alone. Or is it?

Loneliness is a health hazard. Cigna estimates that “loneliness costs employers more than $154B a year in lost productivity due to absenteeism”.

How do we heal ourselves from loneliness?

My friend-making test was a success.

Being curious is my superpower. After witnessing the easiness with which Brendan and Farid became friends, I did an experiment last week at my favourite cafe. Afterwards, I wrote an article on Medium about it. You can read the whole story from the link at the end of this newsletter.

To summarise my experiment in one sentence: I just started talking to a stranger. I even asked him to join me while his family was shopping at the Garden Centre.

And this is what I learned:

• You are lonely if you are not accepted or if you are rejected. We do this to each other almost unconsciously: fear of the unknown isolates us. Courage is the first dose of medicine to break the shackles of loneliness.

• You are alone but not lonely if you open your eyes and ears to the world. The second dose to heal loneliness is wisdom: don’t be a martyr or people pleaser, but train your discerning muscles.

• Your loneliness is a valuable gem. The third and last medicine against the epidemic of loneliness is to develop compassion. It is not just sympathising or being empathetic but taking somebody’s sorrow and turning it into joy and understanding. Compassion is wisdom in action.

We cannot expect others to understand us before we try to understand them. Easier said than done. Stephen R. Covey's habit about understanding is "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood." This is the fifth habit in his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." I think it should be the first habit we develop.

And then a miracle happened.

I discovered it became easier after jumping into the deep end of making friends at an advanced age. Since my first and very conscious attempt to start talking to a stranger, I had a massage. Every fortnight, I go to a local Chinese massage parlour at the shopping mall to treat my back and neck (my writer’s block is physical) to keep me writing.

They have now had a new masseur for a few months. He is the best I have ever had. Instead of just thanking him and going away, I started to talk with him after our session. I asked what his secret was. He and his wife studied massage in Japan, the art of shiatsu. And I can feel it.

To cut a long story short, Chris came to have dinner with my family a couple of days ago. He speaks Japanese, which was a great bonus since my wife is Japanese and our son speaks fluent Japanese, too.

So, I made a new friend who then became our family friend. Hopefully, his wife gets her visa sorted out, and we can meet her and their two daughters, too.

It felt like a miracle. The easiness of building friendship is blocked only by our fear.

I should have learned this earlier.

I remembered a story the inventor of MndMap, the late genius Tony Bozan, once told me in London.

Tony was in New York at a posh restaurant but decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air after dinner. He meandered in his thoughts and ended beside a dodgy-looking club in some alleyway. Next to the club stood a huge black man with golden chains around his thick neck and other gangsta regalia.

Tony asked the bloke, “Are you a drug dealer?”. For a moment, the situation started to look very dangerous, but then Tony said to the giant that he was just curious to know how it all worked and was not interested in drugs or becoming a private detective.

Tony ended up having a long conversation at the club, where the gangster explained how the drug dealing business worked in detail. In return, Tony taught the man how to do MindMaps.

Tony said to me he wasn’t afraid but curious. So, the old adage is wrong: curiosity never kills the cat but helps to have a good chat.

Enough about loneliness and how to make friends and influence people.

What is your friend-making strategy? Do you have one? Are you one of those lucky extroverts who have friends more than they can count, or are you more like me who needs to make an effort?

I leave you with a quote from Nichiren Daishoning, who wrote this in 1275, and it is more relevant now than ever:

“Moreover, in this evil latter age, evil companions are more numerous than the dust particles that comprise the land, while good friends are fewer than the specks of dirt one can pile on a fingernail.”

Ngā Mihi

Jussi

The latest Medium article.

The book of the week.

"Into The River" by Ted Dawe is a coming-of-age novel set in New Zealand. The story revolves around Te Arepa Santos, a Māori boy from a rural area who wins a scholarship to a prestigious boys' boarding school in Auckland.

The book explores Te Arepa's struggle with identity as he tries to fit into the predominantly white, upper-class environment. He changes his name to Devon in an attempt to assimilate but finds it challenging to reconcile his cultural heritage with the expectations of his new surroundings.

Devon faces a series of trials and tribulations, including bullying, racism, and sexual awakening, and he also gets involved in a dangerous relationship with a troubled girl. The book delves into themes of societal pressure, identity crisis, and the journey of self-discovery.

The story ends on a tragic note, with Devon's life spiralling out of control, symbolising his complete immersion 'into the river' of a world far removed from his own. The novel is a stark portrayal of adolescence, exploring complex themes of identity, class, and cultural conflict.

It is one of the best of its kind, and when I reread it a couple of weeks ago, it felt even better this time.

The novel won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year and the top prize in the Young Adult Fiction category at the 2013 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.

However, it also sparked controversy due to its explicit content and themes. In 2015, the New Zealand Film and Literature Board of Review banned the book temporarily due to its explicit content, making it the first book to be banned in New Zealand in 22 years. This decision was later reversed, but it sparked a significant debate about censorship and the appropriateness of certain content for young readers.

Get it from Apple Bookshop or Amazon. Or you can listen to it as an audiobook from here.