Something about her eyes spoke to me. To date, I must have watched this video about a hundred times. I asked myself: is there anything I have used religiously every day for a decade to no avail, just for the sliver of hope that it might work one day? I could not think of anything.

Around the same time, I came across Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware, a former nurse who wrote about the common regrets of people nearing the end of their lives after having worked 30+ years in end-of-life care. She had probably seen thousands of people die, and wrote about the biggest regrets people have near the end of their lives. One of them was that people wish they had spent more time connecting with the people they love.

During my time in New York, I visited the 9/11 Memorial and listened to some of the last phone calls made by the victims. In those final moments in the face of death, they reached out to their loved ones, expressing love, offering reassurance, and promising that they would meet again. Similar stories centering around the virtue of human connection shining through are echoed in many different cultures and places.

Memento mori. Remember that we must die. And the things which we do with the inevitability of death in mind hints at what truly matters in life.

So I wondered: what is it about human connection that is so precious and universal to all of us? I find it incredibly profound that for everybody, most of the things that used to matter, like grades, money, fame, and status, completely depreciate in the face of death, while things like relationships and genuine connections shine through. Why, in the face of death, do connections and love become the only things that truly matter to everybody, regardless of their position in life? It sounds incredibly silly when asked, but:

Why has nobody ever asked to see their college GPA transcript, graduation certificate, bank account statements or awards, job titles or retirement letters before they die?

It is not like those things do not matter. In fact, they matter so much to me and the people around me that I could not imagine them suddenly losing their value when we are presented with death. But it seems like it is an established trend, and it would be arrogant to think we would be different.

It does seem that genuine connections and relationships hold a permanent, universal quality. Connections are the virtue of this world, carrying a kind of eternal value which carries until our final moments, and perhaps even beyond.

After all, no man is an island [1]. Human beings are social creatures. Perhaps it’s in the biological wiring of our DNA, or maybe there is a higher-level spiritual fulfillment that comes from genuine connections with other human beings. The point is, genuine connections are valuable. They are to us a fundamental pursuit until the very end. Essential, necessary, paramount!

TL;DR
WE NEED GENUINE CONNECTIONS!

Going back to the video, I realized what stood out most was how relatable her sentiments are to my friends and me. Since graduating high school, it seems like it just got so much harder to make connections with people. I do not think any of my friends are particularly bad at socializing, but for some reason, I have noticed that the people around me (including myself) do struggle to form genuine connections. Making friends post-high school feels like a completely different game.

And most of my friends are still in college, where genuine connections should be relatively easier to form. When we start working, it will be a greater challenge to meet people and form connections with them; the monotonous life of going to work in the morning and coming back home in the evening. The fact that we are in college and already struggling to fulfill our social needs is a scary thing to think about.

It is not a unique story, and I believe it is not an individual problem, but a systemic and structural one. Modern societies are increasingly hostile to the forming of genuine connections. Many of the interactions today are shallow and ephemeral, leaving our social needs unmet. As a result, we feel lonely.

TL;DR
WE NEED GENUINE CONNECTIONS, BUT WE ARE NOT FINDING THEM TODAY!

When I look at the existing social issues in the traditional East Asian societies I grew up in, I see widespread chronic loneliness. There is a severe social withdrawal problem in Japan, where 1.15 million “hikikomori” refuse to engage with society. There is a declining birth rate across the board, most notably in South Korea at an all-time low of 0.67 in 2024. Even the rising number of cases of radicalized individuals committing acts of violence no longer seem impossible to understand given the general trend of isolation. It is unsurprising that people and things start to fall apart when there is a culture of disconnect in society.

Chronic loneliness is also linked to individual health repercussions. According to the United States Surgeon General’s Advisory in 2023, lacking social connections is equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. While social connection is a significant predictor of longevity and better physical, cognitive and mental health, social isolation and loneliness are significant predictors of premature death and poor health. Some of the evidence links chronic loneliness to: cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, depression and anxiety.

TL;DR
WE NEED GENUINE CONNECTIONS, BUT WE ARE NOT FINDING THEM TODAY.
AND IT IS BECOMING A HUGE PROBLEM!

I have been deeply obsessed with the problem of modern loneliness and the lack of genuine connection. Despite our differences, why do we all converge on caring about connections? There seems to be a kind of fundamental universality about human connection and relationship that fascinates me in the same way physics does.

I feel like something can be done. Modern loneliness is solvable.

Notes

[1] Poem by John Donne, a prominent English poet from the 16th Century.

No Man Is an Island

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

If a cod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.