Isolation

Isolation is something humans fear. The question is has Hollywood taught us to fear isolation or were we always afraid of it? It seems like in every movie where the main character becomes isolated from society they go mad. They start making up imaginary companions to talk to or talk to themselves. Since we were born it seems we have feared being alone though.

Movies for years have been telling us that we fear isolation. Take the movie Castaway for example. The protagonist played by Tom Hanks survives a plane crash. Instead of dying like all the other passengers he becomes stranded on an island for a long period of time. After some time, He makes an imaginary friend from a volleyball naming it Wilson. This happens in other movies and TV shows as well. The protagonist gets stranded somewhere or is the last person alive in an area. They start to get lonely and make friends out of inanimate objects or people who aren’t there. These movies and TV shows are pretty much saying hey you need friends to stay sane. For the most part they are right. As human beings we are social creatures. We crave interaction with other humans. Yes, even interaction with annoying people. When we can’t get this we try other outlets. It will go as far as making an imaginary friend to fill this gap of interaction. Since the day we were born we have been scared of being by ourselves. We would cry out to our parents to hold us. Some might argue that with our dependence on social media we don’t need interaction as much. This isn’t true though because social media is just one of the many ways we interact with other humans.

Movies haven’t taught us to fear isolation. Movies have just showed us what happens when we are away from other humans and things to interact with. We as human beings have feared being alone forever.