Bidisha Chakraborty2020 raged storms of catastrophes in individuals’ lives, including the related fields of human affairs. It was beyond our imagination that we needed to shut ourselves within the four walls for nearly one and a half years. Since the pandemic period we were juggling through, it also aborted several emotional embryos of individuals. The concept of physical interactions, human connections, gatherings, and occasions was shattered in a blink. All we had was technology with us, the mobile, Wi-Fi, laptop, social media accounts, and creative ideas for nourishing our minds; we craved for some loved ones or, in other words, FRIENDS or a BELOVED to refurbish the entanglement of communication.
The sheer lockdown stripped away the excitement of human mobility. The pandemic remained an emblem of separation; it ruptured the real essence of friendship in a realistic sense. But after some point during the lockdown period, technology became a bliss for everyone. Being a social human being, it’s necessary to understand we are always fond of a companion; it can be a beloved, a best friend or sister/ brother, someone with whom we share a sense of belonging. The core malfunctioning of the following epidemic persisted in that it halted the physical movements of people and restricted gatherings and social get-togethers, which were the nucleus of human-to-human interaction. Eventually, it created a distance with our loved ones, and again, the Berlin Wall was reconstructed over the essences of benevolence and bonhomie. We were split, but the pandemic also taught us specific life lessons. We missed our close ones, and that’s absolutely natural. The trend of working from home was initiated; whether it was a nuclear family or a joint, the family members received the privileges of spending time together, which they couldn’t do for years. The emotions started venting slowly, forming a solid bond within human relations. All we had was technology with us, and we could make the most of it; almost eighty per cent of people actively participate in social media, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Social platforms were a boon during the pandemic; it was a new way out for human interaction and generated brilliant opportunities for employment and business-related purposes. Exposure outside the home was a threat because of the virus transmission; hence, strolling outside or hanging out with our close ones was restricted tempo-rarity as per our assumption, but the distances made us realise we were critical to one another; it instead nurtured an emotional connection for our loved ones. We should call it virtual fellowship because of the conference, video calls, making groups on WhatsApp, tagging posts, mentioning names over blogs or posts, writing poems on Instagram, uploading your best friends’ photos with a heart touching caption, making short video clips with a message, funny boomerangs built a new structure for each emotional relations and friendships. It was an electronic linguistic affection we could discover, thoroughly opposite words but meaningful enough for our witnessing period. The entire procedure of virtual fellowship took place from either side of the screens; it refurbished a new meaning for empathy and affinity.
On the other hand, sharing and making memes gained severe popularity for entertaining each other; a meme either represents our subconscious sense of belonging, a mutual zone of humour or universal experiences that led us to travel back to childhood foolishness or sufferings which we reminisce together. Meme sharing is appropriate for any hyperbolic or unusual situation, news, persona, trends, etc. These digital platforms and the new vogue of communication became another level of innovation. It is also crystal clear and made us realise the fact of real jewels in life who will accompany each other in any circumstance because, above all and everything, standing at the threshold of 2021 or, in other words, in a world of machines, technology became a solution and invented innovative ideas for communication. Vangelis Raptopoulos writes in an article that death can only separate human beings. However, it justifies the argument’s concrete part because the pillar of emotional bond resists abstract realisations and connections. Communication is a touch, whether digital or physical; even a love or a care reaction over social media posts can directly strike one’s emotions. For the type of virus transmitted during an epidemic, you cannot hold hands, hug or kiss your loved ones. However, we exchanged stickers and several GIFs to convey our feelings and emotions. Yes, they were digital, but they were successful enough to express what we wanted to express. It’s digital communication via technology, but our emotions are louder and sufficient to shape the emotional bond of a lover, a distant friend and their situations. It’s a new era of friendship, and the pandemic taught us patience, tolerance, creativity, responsibility, and empathy. The temporary separation made us realise that we were dying to see our loved ones, craving exciting hangouts, and sharing memory notifications on social media to generate the essence of a past memory.
Still, the possibility of one question upsurges: does virtual benevolence altogether remove the lonesomeness of an individual? After all, technology leads to upgrades and sometimes complications. If later these digital friendships become too sensitive for individuals and if emotional bonds turn out to be threats? Technology is an alternative solution that works to fill the communication void, and the latter part rests with us on how we orchestrate the benefits of technology. At the end of the day, we are human beings, and we are emotionally connected with others who are similar to us, made up of flesh and blood; therefore, controlling power must be in our hands. Technology has been discovered by humans, so we have to keep in mind that if the application of technology is for the betterment of society and with honest intentions, the outcomes will be equivalent to the application. Love, emotions, friendship, and feelings are abstract, and technology fails to decode their authenticity. It justifies the place of human beings as different from the rest of the world’s species. However, you will find your pets more intelligent and friendly during lonesomeness, as they understand the language of affection and kindness more than we do. Yes, this is the magic of emotional bonds that leaves ecstasy wherever it dwells. We are separated via constructions like education, geography, colour, race, sex, gender, religion, white, black, Asian or European, and we are foolish to do so and a similar thing has been manifested in politics and its related fields. Because love and humanity have no colour, no construction, the pain felt by a European upon the death of their near and dear ones would be similar to the pain felt by an Asian woman or man or African British. Empathy, kindness, love, and humanity are the mantras of any emotional bond with their loved one, whether country with country, state with state or island with continent. John Keats said, “Love is my “religion – I could die for it”.
Undoubtedly, the pandemic is a lesson for individuals with pros and cons; we didn’t lose hold of our loved ones but discovered new foundations for our emotional strings. Emotions are the epic centres of our lives, and we are operated by our heart’s affections we tend to choose our loved ones despite abundant materialism. Thus, technology must generate the communication roots to reach one another for emotional exchanges as it rejuvenates human bonds. The importance of loved ones and friendship during the respective challenging period was an outstanding experience; we realised that we should never take relationships for granted and ruin the aesthetic vibes of the abstract as these bonds are peculiar in nature and unite us mentally, physically and emotionally. Albert Camus stated that –
“In the middle of winter
I at last discovered
That there was in me
An invincible summer”
And the ‘” invincible ‘summer’ is our repressed emotions that sometimes become fossils. It is nurtured effectively with love, care, and emotions, which we can gather from human-human-to-human actions. If our sole companion, the dive into the elixir of cheers is five comforting and memorial whet, her virtual or physical, emo. Emotionlove wins win over these barriers.
