The author, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, aims to raise awareness to maybe the largest public health problem the United States faces today, one that is both at the core of other major health problems (from the Opioid Crisis to the increase in suicide rates) and is also surprisingly overlooked: loneliness.
He does that through a tour of all the faces that loneliness presents in our lives, giving a special place to its hidden aspect, in the first Section, and then proceeds, in the Second Section, to present loneliness’ antidote – connection – through a sequence of concentric circles, from the individual to larger and larger groups we belong (family, friends, and outer groups).
To expose all this content, Dr. Murthy chooses the storytelling approach, jumping from one person’s narrative to the next, connecting those that crossed his path in his journey from unawareness of the issue as a shared one, to the discovery of the initiatives that are popping around the country to tackle the problem of a lack of human connectedness.
The book’s main quality may also be its major flaw: it reads as a fluid report of a journey, through the voices and lives of those that were also touched by the challenge of loneliness. It’s a narrative, not a manual. So, maybe my major issue with the book was one of expectations: I was expecting a clear list of practical solutions at the end of the book, or at the end of each chapter. He does provide excellent examples of pioneers that aim to tackle isolation through offering alternative connecting solutions, but due to its narrative style, they are embedded in the body of the narrative and hard to be used as a quick guide.
In retrospect, I think the book does very well what it intended to do, and there is still space for content that enumerates possible solutions to the problem of lack of connectedness in a more straightforward way somewhere else. In fact, it propelled me to start this blog, to provide just that: a report on possible ways to tackle the challenge of the loss of connection in our post-pandemia world, reviewing each of these initiatives, one at a time, in an easy to consult way.
So, if you are here for the same reason I was reading Dr. Murthy’s book – namely, to learn about all possible projects you could potentially try – I encourage you to read the following posts:
- If you want to look at a complete list of every community or movement I’ve researched that is doing any of the things I’ve mentioned, you can read the post A complete list of Communities that foster Community;
- If you want to deepen the way you connect, read the post How to bring your power of connecting to another level;
- If you want to connect more with yourself, in other to better connect with others, read the post Connecting with yourself in order to better connect with others: the How To.