© 2024 Paula Requejo
© 2024 Urantia Association of Spain
20th Urantia Book Readers’ Meeting in Spain
Toledo, June 28, 2024
Interpersonal relationships are interactions between people. These interactions create bonds, and these bonds are based on feelings, emotions, interests, and family and social activities.
Communication is key and fundamental for people to interact. Interpersonal relationships are the foundation of life in society.
Are interpersonal relationships necessary? Aristotle already said: “Man is a sociable being by nature.” And Jesus of Nazareth, who reminded his apostles of what the Scriptures had already said: “It is not good for man to be alone. No one lives for himself.” UB 193:3.2
Even the Master did not allow himself to be alone for long periods of time, asking the apostles to always have one or two near him, even when he withdrew to pray.
Therefore, we can say that “human relationships are good for us, loneliness kills us.”
But is there scientific evidence to support these claims? Absolutely. A Harvard University study, currently led by research psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, observed the lives of a group of people from childhood to old age. This study sought to discover what keeps us healthy and happy as we move through life. Here are some of its conclusions:
“People with closer ties to family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and so on are happier, healthier, and live longer. On the other hand, people who are more isolated feel less happy, have poorer health, their brain function declines more quickly, and they live shorter lives. Loneliness is quite toxic.”
Unwanted loneliness is becoming a global problem. Yet, in the United States, one in five people live alone, and a Ministry for Loneliness was created in the United Kingdom in 2018.
If you visit the Madrid City Council website, you can find a section dedicated to preventing unwanted loneliness.
Perhaps we’ve all experienced this kind of loneliness during the pandemic. This unwanted isolation has had terrible consequences for people’s mental health. Robert Waldinger continues:
“Obviously, the key isn’t just the number of relationships, but their quality. Living in an environment of good, warm relationships is crucial for emotional health, and also for long-term physical health.”
Saying that good personal relationships are good for health and well-being seems obvious. But, given that it’s so obvious, why is it so difficult to achieve and so easy to ignore? Perhaps because they aren’t always easy, because caring for family and friends isn’t always attractive or glamorous, because it requires consistency, because it requires overcoming one’s own comfort zone, because it forces us to leave our comfort zones.
When the people in the study were young adults, they believed that money, fame, and professional achievements were paramount, but over time they saw this wasn’t the case. For example, the happiest people in the later years of the study were those who, upon retirement, were able to replace coworkers with new leisure partners.
The study concludes: “If we had to invest now in the best for our future, where would we put our time and energy?” The answer doesn’t seem to have anything to do with money, fame, or working hard. The clearest conclusion from all those years of study is quite simple: good personal relationships make us happier and healthier.
Therefore, interpersonal relationships are fundamental for balanced human development. But do interpersonal relationships always occur in the same way, or do they evolve?
It’s clear that they evolve; they’re not static. We don’t relate to each other today in the same way we did in the 18th century. So, let’s ask ourselves: Who’s changing the way we relate to each other, why these changes occur, and what consequences they have.
In the definition of interpersonal relationships, we stated that the communication process is key and fundamental. Communication goes hand in hand with technology. Therefore, technological changes generate new ways of interacting.
Therefore, technology is one of the “who”s, capable of changing the way we relate to each other.
In ancient times, we communicated by writing on clay tablets or papyrus. Later, we moved on to writing on paper, books appeared, and letters were sent by mail. Today, we use a very different medium: the Internet, for instant messaging, video calls, social media, and more.
Today, we’re able to reach farther, more people, and faster. Immediacy prevails these days, but this generates a lot of impatience and frustration.
We have information on any topic at our fingertips on our phones. There’s so much information out there, we’re constantly bombarded with ads and news of all kinds, some true, sometimes false.
Where does all this lead us? The more technology, the more relationships we have. But are these relationships quality, intimate, or superficial, long-lasting or ephemeral? Does technology diminish the quality of relationships? Does technology lead us to unwanted loneliness?
After this “who,” let’s move on to a current “why,” which has significantly changed relationships between people. You’ll see.
The revelators reveal to us that, in the evolutionary process of a planet, an inevitable point that must be passed is that of gender equality. They tell us that until that moment, the planet remains in barbarism.
Well, on this blessed, decimal and isolated planet, on the path toward gender equality, two extremes have emerged: machismo and feminism. This conflict has led today’s society to a profound identity crisis, to the point of not knowing how to define what it means to be a woman or what it means to be a man. This has given visibility to new interpersonal relationships, defining new types of gender identities. Namely:
Bigender, binary genders, gender neutral, cisgender, agender, gender fluid, intergender, pangender, non-binary, transgender.
And why does this happen? Because sex is defined by biology, but gender is defined by society, an evolving society, in pursuit of equality. Curious, isn’t it? And all of this has consequences.
Let’s talk about family.
The family is the fundamental type of interpersonal relationship for the formation of society. No one could fully develop without the unconditional support of the family.
But who makes up a family? Until recently, we were clear on this. If we had been asked to draw our family as children, we would have drawn something like this: Dad, Mom, and my siblings.
But if new types of gender identities are defined, the concept of family will have to be redefined, and that’s why new types of families have been created: childless families, two-parent families, same-sex families, blended or combined families, single-parent families, foster families, adoptive families, and extended families. But does it really matter how a family is formed?
Do so many types of families make their function less effective?
Whatever the composition of the family, it will remain the primary unit of society. And this unit seems to be the first to adapt to changes in the forms of interpersonal relationships. Therefore, families as a whole will always be an important factor in the changes in our society.
What does the immediate future hold for us regarding interpersonal relationships? What do you think? Let’s imagine we could see the future through a crystal ball. What would we see through it?
The metaverse is a virtual place where people can interact with each other, either in person or through their avatars, using digital objects, while experiencing virtual realities. This may seem harmless, but creating an unreal virtual environment and spending too much time in it can cause a shock when returning to reality, because in the metaverse, people feel powerful.
And human beings, who are restless by nature, begin to wonder how to actually become the superhuman they are in the metaverse. This desire leads us to talk about transhumanism.
Transhumanism is a phenomenon that aims to increase our physical and intellectual capabilities. This is already underway! Artificial selection has surpassed natural selection in humans.
This process of transhumanism, in theory, will culminate in Posthumans, future humans who will be far superior, in every way, to any gifted person today. And so we will see the advancement of techniques such as cloning, genetic manipulation, and the implantation of electronic devices in our bodies. Technology will allow us to create designer superhumans, built in the laboratory.
Are we already masters of our own evolution? Is this evolution, or are we trying to avoid death?
As I delved deeper into the study of interpersonal relationships and wanted to take them into the near future, I found two interactions that I’m still not sure how to classify, whether as anomalies or evolutions. Can we consider interacting with artificial intelligence a new interpersonal relationship? Who doesn’t talk to Siri or Alexa? Who doesn’t ask questions to the GPT chat?
Is this a new interpersonal relationship, that of a human being and an “intelligent” machine? Because our brain doesn’t differentiate between the response a person gives us in a random chat and the response in a GPT chat.
Can we ever feel attachment, develop emotions, or develop any kind of feelings for an entity with artificial intelligence? Will we cease to be human and interact with each other, or is this just a transitional period in human history?
And what about the current attachment and relationship with pets? The rise of animalism. Why is there a tendency to personalize animals? Are pets substitutes for children and grandchildren? All of this gives us a lot to think about.
I wonder if humankind is reaching rock bottom, only to re-emerge in a new stage of evolution.
And in this immediate future, where does The Urantia Book fit in? Where is God in all of this?
In the relationship between earthlings and God, we have historically gone from one extreme to another. We have moved from the religious domain to the secular domain. There are times when we have dealt directly with Him, others when we have needed an intermediary, a priest, a rabbi. There have been distant periods in our history in which we have almost forgotten God, and recent periods in which we have ignored Him.
But starting with the fifth revelation, should we consider a new way of relating to these spiritual personalities, seraphim, guardians of destiny, midwayers, and especially a new way of relating to the Universal Father?
What is God? God is love, truth, beauty, and goodness. But the revelators have confirmed something fundamental: the Universal Father is a PERSON. And as they themselves clarify in the first document, “only a PERSON can LOVE and BE loved” UB 1:7.3
Through the fifth revelation, we know that a divine spark dwells within us. And if we are truly aware and feel that He dwells within us, we can consider this personal relationship with God to be the one that will lead us to live a full life, full of surprises, uncertainties, and inevitabilities. A relationship where, if we make His gaze our own, we will look upon others with love, with a desire to serve. A relationship that, above all and despite everything, will ALWAYS make us feel accompanied.
This is the most important relationship we must cultivate and nurture, because it is what makes us transcend, what leads us by the hand, along with the other people with whom we share the path. This relationship is what leads us to Him, to the embrace of His Person. And can you imagine a better embrace than this?
Thank you so much.
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