“Reaching the top of the ladder, I tore the little bird-house from under the eves and let it fall to the ground in pieces.“
– Journal Entry, Sunday, May 27, 2012.

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From the 1930’s through the 1960’s, the University of Wisconsin research psychologist, Harry Harlow, studied the effects of social isolation and maternal deprivation in experiments with rhesus monkeys. Harlow’s experiments were controversial, even in a time when animal cruelty wasn’t the issue it is today. Despite the profound insights his research would provide, Harlow’s work would in no small part inspire later animal rights movements.

Many of Harlow’s experiments involved separating very young monkeys from their mothers, and then replacing the adults with various inanimate surrogates. In later experiments, infants were isolated entirely for periods lasting up to years using a device that became known as, “the pit of despair“. These monkeys emerged seriously maladjusted and emotionally and behaviorally disturbed, sometimes to the point of allowing themselves to die. Through his research, Harlow determined that both social interaction and physical touch have profound psychological and physiological effects on long-term brain development.

Likewise, the essence of what it is to be “human” is found in our own social nature. A fundamental driver of the human condition arises from the contradiction between the isolation of individual consciousness and our instinctive want of meaning in life. The human psyche is thus driven to find a place within an indifferent universe through our interactions with others, and especially in those moments of communication and creation, empathy, compassion, and what we call “love”.

It’s the second great motivator in human nature, after fear, and before boredom. We long for friendships, understanding and companionship, love and family. They give the human spirit a sense of meaning, a purpose and a place in which to belong. We feel the drive to find this grounding force, a place in a hardwired range of emotions that creates a sense of “home”. Nested between those fundamental human drives that ensured our very survival as a social species, there is loneliness.

Logging-on to Facebook for the first time in about six-months, it occurred to me that just as with fear and boredom, whole empires of commercial enterprise rise from just the human drive to assuage loneliness with social interaction. Loneliness is simply the feeling of being cut off from this process. And as with fear and boredom, its instinctive drive compels all forms of behavior, from the most benign of social activities to the most destructive. That there exist entire industries intended to address its discomfort should be no surprise.

The young, female robin that calls for a mate from the top of the aspens at the edge of my back yard wakes me up at 4:00am, once more reminding me that it is again spring. I wish her well as I squeeze in a pair of earplugs. She sings every day, all day long, taking just short breaks every now and then while searching for a quick snack in my lawn. I remember her parents who nested in a Japanese maple between the patio and the deck. It reminded me of two Mountain Chickadees that nested in a birdhouse I’d attached to the side of my old house.

I knew that an animal, probably a neighbor’s cat, had killed the male chickadee after I found the bird’s more colorful feathers scattered near the fence at the east side of the house. The female waited for days, perched in the birdhouse opening just above, calling desperately for its mate. I had never before known that birds could cry. There was nothing I could do.

Probably driven on by hunger, she disappeared after the nestlings had all died.  And that was when I pulled the ladder around from the back of the house.

“Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
(Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?”

—The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby