Together
Vivek H. Murthy · 2020
Together (2020) is a book by Vivek H. Murthy on relationships & connection. America's former Surgeon General argues loneliness is a hidden epidemic that quietly wrecks our health, and that human connection is a form of medicine. Part science, part memoir, part field guide to building a more connected life.
Written by a U.S. Surgeon General who diagnosed loneliness as a public-health epidemic, this is the rare relationship book that treats connection as medicine and gives you a physician's prescription for it.
Two of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Together pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.
- Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Murthy defines it as the subjective gap between the connection you have and the connection you crave, which is why you can feel it in a crowd or a marriage and escape it in solitude.
- Loneliness comes in three distinct flavors, and confusing them keeps people stuck. Building on sociologist **Robert Weiss's** work on emotional and social isolation, Murthy distinguishes **intimate** loneliness (missing a confidant), **relational** loneliness (missing a circle of friends), and **collective** loneliness (missing a community of shared purpose). You can be rich in one and starving in another.
The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 8 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- The Epidemic Under Our Noses
- Why We're Wired to Connect
- The Loneliness Paradox
- Cultures of Connection
- Why Now: The Modern Loneliness Machine
- Relating Inside Out
- The Circles of Connection
- A Family of Families and the Medicine of Service
Finish Together tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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