|Nicole Rojas-Oltmanns|
Moon plays Thursday, March 12th at Emagine Willow Creek. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit emagine-entertainment.com.
In 2020 when COVID-19 shut down most of our social connections, I, like many caregivers, was the opposite of lonely. While so many were alone at home, I was inundated with constant human interaction. While I had purpose in taking care of my family and educating my niece and nephew, many others were the loneliest they had ever been in their whole lives. For some, COVID made visible what before was invisible—their disconnection and isolation.
In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General at the time, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, created the report, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. This report details numerous longitudinal studies and trends about an epidemic that was brewing before COVID-19 came to town: loneliness.
Moon (2009) showcases loneliness in extreme. In the film, a mining company is harvesting energy sources from the moon. Although most of the resource mining is automated, Sam still needs to check on the process and fix what gets broken. For his three year stint on the moon, Sam is accompanied by a friendly robot companion, Gerty, who follows Sam around the base reassuring regularly with, “Helping you is what I do,” and, “I am here to keep you safe, Sam.”
Gerty’s AI programming, designed to keep Sam safe, leads the robot to hide information from Sam that would cause him distress. However, the programming can’t cope with the inevitability of clone chaos. No matter how many Sams there are, Gerty does their best to keep all of the Sams safe.
Regardless of the protection of his robot companion, nearing the end of his three years, the first Sam we meet expresses how lonely he is. Admitting to Gerty that he is talking to himself and that, “Three years is too long.” Sam names his plants, carves a detailed model of his hometown and family, and begins hallucinating that he is seeing the people he misses. Every morning, Sam wakes to the song lyrics, “I am the one and only.” In a video from his wife, she tells him that she knows how lonely he must be, but thinks the break has been good for both of them.
When he is rescued by a new Sam, lonely Sam asks the new Sam for physical contact, to play ping-pong, and talk with him. New Sam believes he only left his home on Earth one week ago. He is uninterested in these attempts for connection. Where lonely Sam is sad and physically deteriorating, new Sam is angry and motivated to find answers. After putting in his three years, lonely Sam still wants to believe that he can go home to be with his wife and child.
The Surgeon General’s report helps us understand why lonely Sam is behaving this way and why his body is deteriorating so rapidly, “Social connection is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter.” The report spotlights how when we are experiencing social isolation and loneliness, we have a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide, viruses and respiratory illness, and premature death. We also tend to have lower academic achievement, worse performance at work, more stress-related absenteeism, and are more likely to join gangs and extremist groups.
When communities are connected, population health increases. There is resilience during natural disasters, as well as greater community safety, economic growth, and civic and government participation.
This is not the case in many communities or the country as a whole, which is more divided than ever before in its history. The report is not timid regarding this harsh reality, stating that if we do not, “build more connected lives and a more connected society… we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. Instead of coming together to take on the great challenges before us, we will further retreat to our corners—angry, sick, and alone.”
When new Sam and lonely Sam work together, they discover the truth of their existence and the energy company’s operations. When new Sam leaves for Earth, Gerty asks to have their memory erased to ensure new Sam’s safety. New Sam also enables synchronous communication so the next Sam will know that truth immediately.
The report reiterates, “Throughout history, our ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival. We are called to build a movement to mend the social fabric of our nation. It will take all of us.”
In light of all of this, I ask myself: Which of the energy company’s actions was most unethical? By default of the process, clones can’t consent to being clones. However, no creature ever consents to life. Telling the clones at onset that they were clones would have made them less happy. The clones were lonely, but no lonelier than the original Sam. The difference being the original Sam was lonely for three years and then returned to his family on Earth. The clones had to be lonely for three years, with no chance of ever being with the people they loved. The worst of the energy company’s actions was never-ending loneliness.
Ways to Connect
A More Perfect Union. 2026. https://www.mpu.us/
Davis, Pete. “Join 101: What Are You Doing Alone That You Could Be Doing Together.” 2026. https://join101.substack.com/
Kirsner, Ashley and Skip the Small Talk, LLC. “Skip the Small Talk.” 2020. https://www.skipthesmalltalk.com/
National Institute of Health. “Social Wellness Toolkit.” Last modified, March, 2025. https://www.nih.gov/health-information/your-healthiest-self-wellness-toolkits/social- wellness-toolkit PDF: https://www.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/social-wellness-checklist.pdf
Resources on Loneliness
Davis, Pete and Rebecca. Join or Die. 2023. https://joinordiefilm.com
Murthy, Dr. Vivek H. et al. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023. Full text: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
One page summary: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-social-connection-general.pdf
Radtke, Kristen. Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness. Pantheon Books, 2021.
Edited by Finn Odum