If Loneliness is Contagious, So is Hope

Wow, I've let almost an entire workweek get away from me without posting here -- my bad.

I have spent a bunch of that week downtown, attending a conference and meeting with more promising media startups.

Although this is the worst of times to be a professional journalist (we're all out of work), it's a fascinating time from the perspective of changing communication habits.

Take blogs. A decade ago, hardly anyone was blogging.

Today, millions of people blog. It's become a major way of connecting with one another in an otherwise fragmenting world.

According to a report in the Washington Post recently, loneliness is contagious.

That caught my eye, because I've often noticed the effects, some of them quite subtle, people's emotional states have on each other. The studies in the report covered by the Post indicate that one person's loneliness can be transmitted to others via a variety of pathways.

At the core of our humanity is our capacity for empathy. Just sensing the deep loneliness another feels triggers a response inside many of us. We can so easily imagine feeling the same way, and sometimes, of course, we do.

Isolation, alienation, loneliness -- these are major social diseases of modern society. To address them, there is another tool within our grasp and that is hopefulness, optimism.

I observe that expressing one's essential hopefulness if contagious as well. Some may dismiss you as lacking the appropriate degree of cynical realism about our actual condition if you act hopeful, but others will thank you for making their day a little brighter.

With that in mind, I'll try to end this post, on a cold winter's day, with few tangible amenities available to view, on a hopeful note. Things may get worse, it's true; yet they may get better.

I'm opting for the latter view...

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