Loneliness is framed as an emotional consequence resulting from an absolute absence. A deprivation of what stimulates the mind, touches the heart, and nourishes the soul. An undeniable void based on the awareness that this emotional state isn’t satisfying. Given everything once experienced, whether seen, heard, or even once felt. It could take the shape in the form of a remembrance of companionship, the joys of being around enjoyable people, and the relief of being accepted and wanted.

Scenarios that are ever presently marketed on all media platforms and practiced in society. Even after a considerable time, the lonely adoptees can’t help but want to reconnect. To fill this absence, the lonely have a natural impulse to crowd their environment with the purchase of products and services. To spend as a form of healing. Therefore, creating the emergence of an economy based on a silent pain. An economy where isolation is monetized.

The present landscape in society is one driven to quell the loneliness. Whether you are surrounded by people who tolerate your presence or are conveniently placed to interact with you, there is a disconnect. An inconsistency in understanding who you are and appreciating you for being you. And in the pursuit of forming your identity so that you can have a better understanding of what you are about in terms of morals, ethics, values, ambitions, and dreams, there is an inevitable drive to spend. Along the course of this journey, you will market who you are by enrolling in activities based on your interests. And spend and keep spending to connect with yourself, and eventually invite others to connect with you to end the torment of isolation. Your emotional thrust is driving you to be more economically active.

Not that you are spendthrifts, but because you spend differently and your emotional rationale is directed to the formation of identity and castration of loneliness. There is an intention to pay for presence in a life where there is an ego-influenced desire to mark your territory. As though there is a psychological need to matter in this life. For instance, to feel valued, to some extent, by those with whom you share this space. And unfortunately, these wants and needs are promoted by media manipulators. Pushing synthetically engineered environments where groups are having the time of their lives.

Be it a movie’s depiction of an over-the-top house party, a TV series’ emotional narratives that heighten the value of emotional and physical intimacy, or even commercials where a supposed group of friends are overwhelmingly delighted to be consuming the mediocre product. The media pull is incessant and relentless. Regrettably, there is a resignation from psychologists, sociologists, and life coaches who encourage others to adopt this system’s ideology. To swim with the tide as opposed to against it. Offering a measured suggestion that feels like an empty promise. That being to create your own pocket within the space. The implication is to build, design, decorate, and invest heavily. Spending more to feel whole.

This is reflected societally within a basic business model. One being convenience with the alleged emergence of emotional comfort. Briefly, dating applications, social media platforms, and social apps are designed not for you to sustain your wish to end loneliness but to reinforce it. And they charge you for the experience. It’s emotional manipulation or a form of legalized business scamming. Where the product promises and doesn’t fully deliver. What it does is create more emotional chaos, resulting in the contribution of crippling our collective faith in humanity.

Through the misappropriation of their ratio, which skews more heavily towards the bottom line (business) rather than the emotional healing (betterment of mankind), the result naturally leads to establishing a farm of lonely people. It is to the business benefit of these applications to keep them functioning as profit-making businesses. The ruthless genius behind it is that they present hope when there is none, and that hope translates to more lonely people spending.

Ultimately, we need to ask ourselves as a collective whether we want to remain with this model or would we like to work to drive more depth, meaning, intentionality, and conscious engagement? To funnel the alternative model into businesses with the intent to both stimulate the economy and empower people. Should we continue designing a world that harvests lonely people and exploits their predicament for profit, or should we create purposeful solutions to end loneliness? Would we like to witness how society would shape if we adapted to peace? Where is the collective mindset at peace and spreads on a global scale? Loneliness is being weaponized, and I’m unsettled from a humanistic front.

However, this is a new market for businesses to fully exploit and profit from, given our attachment to the convenience, comfort, and luxury business model also known as “The Cushion Economy.” My recommendation would be to begin thinking of baby-step businesses that usher away from the Cushion Economy and into “The Reflective Economy,” one that is rooted in depth, where value is created through intentional action, emotional awareness, and a conscious response to the human condition.