English
EspañolA family that loves each other is companionship and intimate trust—an infallible vaccine against loneliness.
Text
“On the other hand, “equal consideration needs to be given to the growing danger represented by an extreme individualism which weakens family bonds and ends up considering each member of the family as an isolated unit (…) The tensions created by an overly individualistic culture, caught up with possessions and pleasures, leads to intolerance and hostility in families.” (The Joy of Love, n.33)
Commentary
Do not isolate yourself! Do not shut yourself in or get self-absorbed in your own world! You risk becoming a complaining, egocentric, manic, and lonely person. Do you have a family that loves you? And, do you love your relatives? If so, then you possess the most effective vaccine against solitude. Take care of that privileged environment. How? By reciprocating the love you receive. Enrich it by also giving yourself to and embracing your loved ones.
The young and the not so young can, perhaps without acknowledging its danger, acquire and foster habits of solitary self-absorption. These habits can be ways of evading the correspondence and contribution to the needs of their family´s environment. Such individualism is often favored by the “screens” (TV, computer, iPad, cell phones, etc.) that are part of this century´s advance in communications. “Global connectivity,” often promoted nowadays, can lead to egocentric isolation, intolerance, aggressiveness, and indifference to others if not correctly used within the family.
Paradoxically, said isolation has the opposite effect that the internet intends: “disconnection” – which is disunity – among family members, thus the breakdown of their union, as well as a subtle but enormous danger: disconnecting from one´s own family, the only real world, in favor of confining themselves to an unreal world, the virtual one.
