Solitary

Snowfall in Victorian Village, 2010
my turn to shovel our walks 

This morning, I watched a National Geographic program on the effects of solitary confinement on inmates.  In particular the program focused on a penitentiary in Pennsylvania that houses only inmates in solitary confinement.  In the case of this prison, the inmates are kept in solitary for a minimum of 18 months, average of two years, and five years is not atypical. Medical and biological tests are conclusive: this type of inhumane treatment produces exactly the opposite as to what is intended -- inmates who are less capable of dealing with other people and the psychological tests of this life.

Included in the major impacts are:

• A visceral need to be hyper-diligent in awareness of surroundings
• An inability to build or sense community
• A lack of impulse control and tendency toward compulsive behavior

What is interesting to me, is that this happens to us all.  

As we become more isolated by our neighbors, we become more fearful of them and increase our isolation from them.  It becomes impossible to build community where thriving communities once stood.  Take for example, neighborhoods and kids.  Where kids are isolated from their neighborhoods to go to school (through bussing, etc), the neighbors can no longer effectively care for the kids.  Distance grows and people become afraid of each other.  Kids are increasingly isolated and become more afraid of strangers in their daily travels.  Kids become connected to kids with the same fears (no families; no community) and create their own through mechanisms like gangs. Remember, that the part of our brains that develops and controls discernment doesn't begin to be engaged until late teenage or early adulthood.  

Then, think about the people you know who are addicts.  Substance abuse often emanates from the loneliness of isolation (whatever type of isolation that may be).  

At my home in Columbus' Victorian Village, I knew all of my neighbors.  We sat on our front porches.  We supported and looked out for one another.  We knew that if there were problems we were not alone.  Not so much here in Cleveland.  I, for one, am without a job and feeling professionally isolated. My neighborhood has become rougher around the edges and people are more personally isolated.  I have been not feeling like walking the neighborhood and I've been drinking too much.  Too much. 

But all of that is about to change.  It is spring and a time for renewal.  I have been outside, raking the leaves, tending my garden, and walking the neighborhood.  I have reached out to area non-profits and offered my services.  I am still not feeling very well, but I am feeling better.  

So, when you see that neighbor who is alone or that kid walking home from school, engage them.  Look them in the eye and notice they are there.  Say, "hello."  Every time.  Until they hear you.  

This is how we may begin to regain our neighborhoods and our selves.  It may help people and communities who were thought to be unreachable regain a sense of peace.