ATT Mars: Please invade Earth. Thanks!

A Singaporean friend asked my opinion today:

"You might be the only American I know. I'm pretty disturbed by the recent shootings and ever since Columbine, so many innocent people have died at the hands of gunmen. Is there anything America can do to stop gun sales or something? Sighhh.."

This was my response:

Americans cling tightly to their freedoms, of which owning a gun nears the top of the list.  It is the second amendment in our constitution, after all.  However, all Americans will agree that events like the one today in Connecticut need to be stopped.  The debate lies in how we fix the problem.  Prohibition of guns and forcing Americans to give up their fire arms goes against our constitution and would be a long tiring fight likely resulting in a compromise involving more legislation.  Even if it were to end in a gun free society, we would truly only be ridding our society of the guns -- not the violence.  You can't own a gun in China, and today they too faced tragedy from a stabbing rampage at local school.  22 children were attacked.  The difference is the American children are dead, the Chinese children will live to see another day but are left with the scars for the rest of their lives.

The problem and the answer lies in community and opening our eyes to see that the digital society we build and choose to live in are very isolated and disconnected.  We have grown to become close companions with our screens rather than our neighbors; we prefer digital to physical but we are physical beings and need physical interaction.  This false sense of connectedness will not be sufficient, yet it is what we choose to invest in more and more.  We are surrounded by 'smart' devices that occupy our time with brain numbing apps which are doing more harm than good.  They facilitate us to grow into more self-centered beings and escape from our physical community and getting to know the person sitting right by your side, the person who you see everyday at the train station but who after months you still haven't bothered to learn their name.  One day that person may be struggling, needing just one person to say hello and ask how they're doing, yet we say nothing and avert our eyes, choosing our screen over a human.

We are quickly losing touch with the value and importance of developing our physical community.   Research has concluded that people today feel more alone & depressed than twenty years ago.  The average number of close friends has dropped from 3 to 1.  We have 761 friends on facebook, we spend hours liking their posts and scrolling through their pictures, but have we ever had a meaningful conversation with that person?  What are we really investing our time in? Why don't we make time to know our neighbors, to invest in our physical communities?

I'm friends with an elderly man who lives alone and has done so for many years now.  Some weeks he will go for days at a time without talking to anyone; he doesn't have facebook.  When I visit him, his smile is so bright and beaming it makes my week.  Sharing time together with him and feeling how appreciative he is from just me stopping by to say hello brings us both joy, and we part ways feeling far better than before.

In The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World, the Dalai Lama highlights that people come together in times of crisis, but we need to foster feelings of co-operation in day to day life without ( as the Dalai Lama jokes ) the threat of an invasion from Mars to force us to work together.  People who live in isolation mentally, will see the world out of focus.  We've all had our crazy spells when we feel our world is falling a part, but we've had a friend tap us on the shoulder and say, "snap out of it - refocus your eyes to the big picture, the world around you and not just your world".   We need people physically around to make sure we are seeing a focused world, and not one distorted by our ego.

We need to educate and ACTION the importance of saying hello to our neighbors,  the importance of shutting down and spending time away from screens and interacting with other people physically.  Doing so we will have a richer sense of belonging and responsibility towards each other.  We must interact more to realize that we are all on the same team.  We are all a part of humanity and violence towards each other be it through guns, knives or words will never heal the pain you are feeling and more importantly, create the love missing from your heart.