Dr. Edward Hallowell

and the next thing you know they get talking to one another in spite of themselves and the next thing you know there's a softball team there's a symphony club there's a they started putting uh wax boards next to the elevators so instead of making small talk at the elevator they could draw equations and tell each other what they were working on you meet them where they are

And lo and behold, over the course of the year, we really changed the culture of that department.

So it's a grim statistic, but it's very significant.

There have been no suicides since.

The proudest award I ever got was the chemistry department gave me the department medal.

I'm the first non-chemist who has ever received that.

Well done.

Yeah, thank you.

But it really drove home to me

Number one, how lethal disconnection is.

I mean, literally people dying, but how plantable it is, how startable it is, because it's in every, even the most introverted reclusive person wants to connect.

Loneliness hurts everybody.

So if you just have to find the right way,

and like in in our case food was was the was the catalyst food was what got the ball rolling then then people jump in and take over and the next thing you know the the town can go from being isolated and separated and paranoid as so many places are these days to connecting maybe you have a block party maybe you have a yard sale maybe you have a

you know, let's root for the local team movement or something that people can join in and connect with each other without making them self-conscious about it.

That's the key.

Most people don't want to sit down and talk about their feelings.

They're afraid of that.

It makes them feel very awkward.

But if you give them some task to do, some project to jump into, and some food to eat, and even better, some wine to drink,