Are We Lost?

We have never been
so connected.

A message crosses an ocean
before we have time
to reconsider sending it.

We know what someone ate for breakfast
three states away.

We see birthdays,
vacations,
weddings,
funerals,
first days of school,
last days of life.

Thousands of people
wait behind little squares
we carry in our pockets.

And somehow,
we are lonely.

We sit in rooms by ourselves
watching everyone else
appear to be surrounded.

We count hearts
from people who do not know
when ours are breaking.

We call it connection.

I wonder when
we stopped noticing
the difference.

Behind a keyboard
we become brave in strange ways.

Cruel in ways
we might never be
if another person's eyes
were looking back at us.

We type things
we would not say across a table.

We decide who someone is
from a sentence.
A photograph.
A mistake.
A political sign.
A moment caught badly
and preserved forever.

We forget
there is a kitchen
on the other side of the screen.

A family.
Bills on the counter.
A mother who worries.
A child who cries.
Someone trying to make it
through an ordinary Tuesday.

There is always
a person on the other side.

Why is that
so easy to forget?

And what about our children?

We hand them the whole world
before they are old enough
to understand what the world contains.

The beautiful things arrive
beside the terrible ones.

A song.
A drawing.
A stranger.
A predator.
A friend.
A lie.
A person pretending
to be someone they are not.
A doorway disguised
as a game.

We teach them
not to talk to strangers,
then give strangers
a way into their bedrooms.

We tell them
to trust their instincts
while algorithms learn
their instincts better
than they do.

What kind of childhood
requires this many warnings?

Do not click that.
Do not answer him.
Do not send that picture.
Do not believe everything you see.
Do not assume the voice is real.
Do not assume the face is real.
Do not assume
anything is real.

How exhausting
to grow up this way.

And now the machines speak.

They write.
They draw.
They answer.
They imitate voices
we love.

They build photographs
of things that never happened
and put words
into mouths that never said them.

The line between
knowing and believing
grows thinner.

We ask a question
before trying to answer it.

We reach for a device
before reaching into memory.

Directions.
Spelling.
Math.
History.

What does this mean?
What should I say?
What should I think?

Tell me.
Tell me.
Tell me.

And I wonder—
what happens to the part of us
that once had to struggle
toward an answer?

The part that sat with confusion.
The part that made mistakes
and learned from them.

The part that stared at a problem
for an hour
until something opened.

If everything becomes easier,
do we become wiser?

Or only more dependent
on something else
to do the wondering?

Already there are wars
fought through screens.

Drones above houses.
Machines choosing targets.
Images manufactured
to make us furious.

Falsehood traveling
faster than anyone
can correct it.

And somewhere
a person sees something untrue
and believes it.

Shares it.
Builds anger around it.
Perhaps even hatred.

And none of us
can quite tell anymore
where the first lie began.

This is the strange part:

we built all of this
to bring us closer.

To save time.
To make knowledge available.
To let people find one another
across every distance.

And it did.
It does.

There is wonder here.

A grandmother sees
a baby take his first steps
from a thousand miles away.

A lonely child discovers
someone else loves
the same strange thing.

A frightened person
finds help at two in the morning.

A voice once unheard
can reach millions.

That matters.

So maybe the answer
isn't to go backward.

Maybe we couldn't
even if we wanted to.

But I keep wondering
what we are trading
for all this convenience.

How much attention?
How much patience?
How much privacy?
How much trust?

How much of our ability
to sit alone
without feeling abandoned?

How much of our willingness
to think before answering?
To question before sharing?

To look another person
in the face
before deciding who they are?

I don't know the answer.

That frightens me more
than I want to admit.

Because everything is moving
so quickly now,
and we are building the road
while traveling it.

There is no map.

No generation before us
can say,
We have been here.
Turn around.
Not that way.

So perhaps the question
is not whether technology
will save us
or destroy us.

Perhaps the question is smaller.
Harder.
More human.

Can we still recognize
one another
without a screen between us?

Can we protect our children
without teaching them
to fear everyone?

Can we use a tool
without handing it
the parts of ourselves
we once used to think?

Can we disagree
without becoming enemies?

Can we remain curious
when certainty is easier?

Can we still tell
what is real?

Can we be alone
without being lonely?

Can we be connected
without disappearing?

I don't know.

I look around
at this enormous web
we have woven around ourselves,

billions of us
calling out at once,
each wanting to be seen,
each wanting to be heard,

each staring into the glow
of a world that promises
we are never alone.

And I wonder
how so many voices
can make such silence.

How so much connection
can leave so much distance.

How something designed
to help us find one another
could make it so easy
to lose ourselves.

Maybe we aren't lost.

Not yet.

But sometimes
I wonder
if we would even notice
when we were.