🅺We’re more connected than ever through social media. A quick scroll shows what your friends and family are up to, making it feel like you’re right there with them. But even with all this connection, people still feel lonely. More than just being alone, loneliness is the painful awareness of wanting deeper social connection.
𒀰In this issue of Outlook, ‘Love and Loneliness,’ we look at these two powerful emotions and how they shape our lives in today’s world.
🍨In her opening note, Outlook's Editor Chinki Sinha talks of how technology once promised a better world--a world where everything would be accessible, and time and space would collapse and new intimacies would be formed. But we entered an era of isolation instead.
🌠Love and loneliness are like two sisters who lead complex, chaotic, and entangled lives. Arundhati Ghosh writes that in a world that is rapidly categorising every feeling we have, every emotion we express, and every aspect of the lives of our hearts into neat piles of the positive and negative, the process of pathologising our experiences comes at the cost of failing to deepen our understanding of their ambiguous messiness. Our lives can be richer if we accept both of these emotions—love and loneliness—with all their imperfections, instead of trying to force them into neat categories.
✤Jagisha Arora writes about how her divorce came with a package deal—loneliness, depression and social isolation followed. She shares that she has always viewed separations in black and white, never fully understanding the nuances and layers. After her divorce, loneliness became her constant companion. It did not make a dramatic entry into her life.
꧂Mehak Jamal, a writer and filmmaker from Srinagar, writes about how love became the greatest form of resistance during the Kashmir lockdowns. Loving in a place of conflict is never simple—it comes with many layers, variables, and caveats. In Kashmir, where the conflict dominates the news, love stories often fall through the cracks. On top of that, coming from a conservative society, the lovers have to get more experimental and innovative while carrying out their love affairs.
Read these stories and more in the latest issue.
