We spend so much of our lives alone together these days. Sure, we are all connected digitally, but this disconnects us physically more than ever. This is what I took away from Cannes Lions this year.
I left for the largest worldwide festival of creativity on the heels of the Knicks win. What I have known firsthand, as someone who has held groups for grief support and writing circles, is that what we are witnessing right now, is a hunger for connection. Ai be damned. Or perhaps, thanks for showing us all how much more we need each other and human connection now, because of it?
There are fewer and fewer places where strangers gather around a shared experience in our modern day moments. We don’t all watch the same tv shows at the same time anymore. We don’t even read the same “hot off the press” newspapers. The water cooler and cultural connective tissue has changed. Watching the Knicks cut through all the bad news noise reminded me just how good it can feel to be connected. Suddenly everyone was having the same conversation. The same celebration. Sports fan or newly minted reveler.
We used to live in the kind of communities where we knew the ups and downs and needs of our neighbors and family. We lived close to one another and had the “village” it took to raise a family, raise the roof or even raise support when it was needed.
I think people underestimate how lonely modern life has become. I know I have. Sure, we have been told by the surgeon general that what we are experiencing is a loneliness pandemic. But, what have we learned from it? How have we changed?
When I was walking down my city block high-fiving strangers, I realized that what felt like winning was really that sense of belonging. Making eye contact with neighbors. Talking to people on the train. All of us nodding and knowing we were carrying the same hope. The kind that can only exist in community. With real people.
The emotion I felt, seemed to be contagious. We were literally catching the “feels” from one another. We have lived through the Covid pandemic, political division, financial uncertainty all while the din of social media was riding rough shod in the background.
For a few hours, we put down our “me” and became a “we”. We mattered. We belonged. We could see one another. I see this in my groups. It’s the counter culture that comes calling when the pendulum swings all the way to machines. It screams, hey, come hang out in the real world. With real ones who get it.
I spent much of my time in Cannes at The Wellness Oasis stage. It’s a transformative community and event platform dedicated to helping people with their mental, physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. So while folks were “over there” talking about Ai, I was over here.
I heard Oprah share one of the most moving and inspired talks on this stage. I popped on my recording app for part of it so I could share it with you. Give it a listen and tell me what you think. This was one of the only places where mental well-being was shared at Cannes Lions. It was the greatest collective exhale.
I have been looking at life through grief colored lenses for over three decades now. And it was no different in Cannes. I proudly wore my Chief Grief Officer ™ baseball cap all around the festival. (Thanks to my kiddos for the coolest ever gift!) Folks asked “what do you do” and “can I take a photo of it”? With every explanation and conversation I learn about the loved ones they missed. I joked that I met every griever there. One creator said, “you are a grief-fluencer”. I laughed and asked, is that one f or two? Truth is, I have been having these conversations in quiet corners for years. I could make no sense of why it was happening in hushed tones.
What I know for sure, as Ms. O says, is that grief is profoundly isolating. It makes us feel separate and other from the rest of the world. Life seems to carry on around us per usual, while we are finding our sea legs in the swirl of the great unknown. I know that we can do better when we know better. From the C-suites to the nose-bleed bleacher seats let’s talk about it.
Grief is as much a part of life as every celebration. It will touch us all, if it has not already. If Cannes taught me anything, it is that when we open the door for conversations about grief, we allow folks to show up as their truest selves. Not the brave face or mask we put on to make others comfortable.
As I shared on Instagram after game four, what we were feeling was what sociologist Emilè Durkheim coined in 1912, Collective Effervescence. That feeling we get when we are wrapped around a shared experience where we experience something larger than ourselves.
Our sense of safety and predictability can be lost in grief. To gain that back we need to borrow calm, hope and understanding from one another. Knowing we don’t have to carry our grief alone is the gift we can give one another.
Look, I am one small voice in a big old world filled with experts I admire. Many whom I have trained under and worked alongside or under their wing. But, when I show up in spaces like Cannes Lions, and offer folks the opportunity to connect, I know the conversation belongs right there on the world stage.
Meet me at Omega in October.
