What if there is a way forward?

Another incident of mass shooting, with innocent lives lost. An event that put my neighboring town of Highland Park in the national news, but not for the right reasons. Just like many of you, I still feel the pain and a sense of helplessness. This time though, it is much closer, 15 minutes from where I live, 3 minutes from where my daughter takes her dance lessons. I know people who live in that community, one of my friends was at the parade, with his son and his dad (fortunately they were unharmed), and my wife lost a colleague to this act of violence. A long summer weekend that is usually marked by tradition, festivities, fireworks will now be marred forever in our memories with thoughts of lives lost and unexplainable horrors.

We had dinner plans to celebrate my daughter's birthday, but given the suspect was still not apprehended, the police department had suggested people stay indoors if they can. We were also very aware of how many neighbors and friends were mourning and a birthday dinner just didn’t feel appropriate. So, we cancelled our dinner reservation, but to maintain a sense of normalcy in the household, we ordered a dinner delivery - and I felt horrible for putting someone else in potential harm’s way, to keep my family situation normal.

Since Uvalde I have been restless. I hate the feeling of helplessness and I want to be a part of the solution. This solution, though, needs to be one that we can all agree upon, one that does not divide us across political lines and one, that does not suffer from stigma. I confess that I am way out of my depth here, it’s not my field of specialization or practice, and maybe my ideas won’t work, but that's why I am engaging with all of you. I want to engage with this community, with people who want to solve the problem and hopefully people who are way more qualified than I in the areas I highlight below.

The debate continues to be whether the problem is one of gun control or mental health, and the answer, most likely is both, but at a time that our country is so polarized, and I have zero confidence that we will be able to address the topic of what constitutes sensible gun ownership. On mental health, we are making progress, but the word mental health brings a stigma with it. For someone to seek help, they must first accept that there is something wrong with them, and even if they do, access to treatment might not always be easy. In my job, I've realized that when we want a diverse group of people to work together, we must first align on the problem statement. We must start with the “Why”. So here is my effort to define a "Why" that maybe we can align on:

After the Highland Park incident, as law enforcement identified the person of interest and his profile emerged, there was something that struck me: He was described as someone who generally kept to himself. If we look back at all the mass shootings, often, there is a consistent theme, the individual is a loner, not very social, not involved in the community. This has me wondering: What if the problem is a societal problem? One of loneliness? Maybe acts of mass shootings are acts of desperation, and the person has no one to talk to, to share their concerns and fears. What if we could try and reduce the likelihood of these incidents by introducing and engaging people who are lonely, into creative actions and connecting with the community. Help them not be alone? Maybe we have an epidemic of loneliness on our hands. Not just mass shootings, but when we look at people who get radicalized and become terrorists, when we look at cases of suicides, so many of those individuals have that consistent profile: lonely, kept to themselves, were not engaged in the community.

Finding ways to introduce/re-introduce people to be an active part of the community, to have friends, and people with similar interest, could be a solution that is one of humanity. Regardless of our political allegiances and religious beliefs, we all care about our communities, our tribes and could rise above our individual differences to work together to engage the people who feel isolated, disengaged, alone. Both the UK and Japan have created roles in their political ranks, to address the issue of loneliness, of social isolation (UK: Loneliness Minister, Japan: Minister of Loneliness). While the reason in Japan was a very different one, preventing suicides, in both instances the intent is to identify individuals who are lonely or showing signs of loneliness and re-introducing them into the community. South Korea, last year, enacted a law to prevent isolated and solitary death.

As a society, we have accepted and tend to leave alone, these lonely, recluse, and isolated people, but what if our schools were equipped to identify kids who were lonely and had a means to engage them, to help them find their interests and passion, and then engage and find companionship with people with similar interests? What if the Googles and the Facebooks of the world were able to identify signs of loneliness and direct individuals towards community resources where they could be a part of the community, or people who they could talk to? What if rather than leaving lonely people be, we came together as a human species to integrate one of us, and help them find their identity and passion and connectivity? What if the issue of isolation and loneliness was made one of national policy? We have seen success in reduction in crime when underserved communities have made efforts to keep the kids off the streets and engaged in positive/creative actions. Could a similar solution work for this problem as well?

I started this post by confessing that I am way out of my depth here, and maybe everything I said above makes no sense, but I can’t help but think that a person who can find love, creativity and companionship is a lot less likely to go down the path of hurting oneself and/or others. If you disagree with me, but have other opinions or ideas, I'd love to hear them. If you think I am onto something and want to be a part of the solution and have ideas, I'd love to join forces. If you are someone who specializes in human psychology, social psychology, criminal psychology, in community outreach, in national policy I would love it if we could come together and create a groundswell, leverage the power of humanity and be a part of the solution. If you know someone who might be able to help, please share this article with them or within your circles.

I look forward to engaging with this community to address this issue, to whatever extent we can. I want to try and solve this problem because I hate this feeling of helplessness and like many of you, I want a better world for us and our children.

Abhijit