Loneliness in Academia

With almost 15 years of working in academia, I notice an increasing sense of loneliness and isolation.

People working, delivering lectures, doing research, completing administration work and handling committee-related tasks.

This set-up makes the feeling of loneliness even stronger. I always grieve the connection, the sense of belonging and having meaningful and humble conversations.

I really don’t know who invented such set-up. But I guess the person who created it was an introvert person and structured this set-up to dive deeper into his/her introvism.

Another factor in academia that triggers loneliness is majority struggling to fit in to be like everyone else.

Majority, if not all, go for their PhDs, talk about research (as if it is the only thing to do in earth) and talk theoretically and smart.

With all my respect to academia, there is an urgent need to go backward and reflect.

Are we all supposed to be the same, do the same thing and pursue the same career path?

What about our individuality? Our separate individual sense of being? What about our passions and preferences?

This limited box created by academia disconnects people from each other. Because then you find lecturers compare themselves with others, compete to fit in and look at each other (as higher and lower) instead of equal human beings.

I hope talking about this, describing it and brainstorming can one day spark awareness around it and wake up people to realize we are not the same and it is ok to be different.