No cure for loneliness

So, while every country in the world has issues with social isolation and loneliness I think the US seems to have a particularly large problem with it. I have no evidence to back this up but it seems to me that family structures in the US are less solid than they are in other countries. And for the people who say "I'm from X immigrant community and we have very strong familial bonds", imagine how much stronger they would be had you not come to the US, and will the next generations bonds be as strong or stronger than your generations bonds?

There is a self-reliance in the US which when it works seems to work ok (although even "successful" people can be very lonely), but when it breaks down very quickly leaves people with no where to turn. People often travel long distances from their families. Often relocating across the country again for work breaking whatever bonds they formed in University. People see their families once or twice a year (because the distances are so great). People prioritize economic needs over family and societal needs and this weakening of familial and societal bonds is the result. Often you end up living far from your family with a spouse and kids. If that doesn't work out - say you break up - you can find yourself alone very fast.

I feel that the homeless problem in the US is a symptom of this - although it also has many other causes. In societies with much stronger societal bonds, people don't let people live on the streets.

I don't have a solution for it, it's just something I've noticed and think about a lot when I listen to stories like this one. And don't get me wrong. Every country has problems like this. It's very easy to get isolated in large crowds of people, I just think the US has a pronounced case of it.

I've gotten into watching a few travel vloggers. One of the best IMHO is Eva Zu Beck. She's not without some minor controversy, but who really isn't? What I enjoy about her channel is her contemplations on the beauty of the world and the difference between loneliness and solitude.

It was a recent video where she said something to the effect of "solitude is something you choose, loneliness is something inflicted on you by others."

I thought this was rather profound and changed my perspective on what loneliness was in terms of giving power over yourself to others. You can't cure loneliness because you have to fix the world first. What you can do is to refuse to give that power to others.

If you find yourself alone, it's okay. You still have your power. If you stay calm you can find peace in solitude.

Oddly, doesn't directly argue there's no cure for loneliness, just outlines the sad extent of loneliness today. I certainly hope there is something that can be done for the situation today.

Personally, I spend most of my time alone, and really enjoy it.

Loneliness is certainly something I feel at times, and I can understand how people feel left out because of it, but I have a hard time understanding how people become so crippled by it.

I mean really, do people just not like themselves very much?

My theory is the over-emphasis of one's internal mental state. I like to say "The overwhelming majority of the universe is OUTSIDE of my litre of jello". This means: focus on observing the world through your senses, not on your internal thought process, which is an infinite black-hole of pointless introspection.

Without exception we will all die and leave this brief experience of consciousness.

Enjoy this brief opportunity to be a self aware entity! And seriously, get over yourself and spend your time trying to see the miracles of the natural world...

Side note: I love websites that break the mold with alternative layouts like this one, even though it's still simple and beautiful.

Hmm... trying to flesh out the article (and escape the trap of individual vs social responsibility...)

When the author says there's no cure for loneliness, he means he can't cure what ails his patients. As a doctor, it's very difficult to engage desperate patients you can't help.

So regardless of whether you think societies or individuals are responsible for loneliness, the question is whether you can cure someone else's loneliness. The author answered in part by doing so, by just listening. But as a result, he also grieved his patient's death.

There are many, many ER staff confronting the gamut of desperation in the U.S. They are not really trained or compensated to do so, but most evolve approaches out of some combination of emotional defense and compassion.

Since Congress made it illegal for ER's to send people away, people have learned they can go to the ER for help. This is very, very good because it's almost always cheaper to solve a problem early. But it had the initial effect of bankrupting many (inner-city) hospitals unable to cross-subsidize the ER, until the Affordable Care Act reduced the number of uninsured's (accelerating hospital consolidation). Unfortunately, hospital systems are still reducing their exposure to these obligations.

We need medical staff to cure people, parents to raise children, and teachers to teach people. We are no where near actually supporting people who build human capacity, and people avoid those roles because of the sacrifices involved.

So costs are exported to capacity-building people, society suffers more costs as a result of diminished services, the marketplace is only accelerating the trend, and there is no vested constituency with the resources to push for political solutions. The system is driving to disaster.

The author suggests a common dynamic underlying both drug addiction and machine addiction -- the hollowing out of will directed at personal or social goals. Choice, made subconsciously and then rationalized, is co-opted by a reward system dedicated by habit to the addicting behavior.

And only takes a small percentage of participants being uncooperative to make cooperation untenable. In the patient's case, his kids simply weren't responsive, and they were all he had after his wife died (and he presumably had no friends left over from work).

i.e.,: the system is driving only because we're not at the wheel.

These articles are kinda funny. The last article of that kind I was reading while walking Spanish streets full of people of all ages sitting around tables and talking for hours. When I first arrived there I felt how people are in general content and relaxed, despite not having salaries enough to buy every latest iphone.

I remember when the WHO designated loneliness as a pandemic. Social support networks are also listed as a determinant of health.

There are good TED talks on how loneliness is worse for our health than smoking X amount of cigs per day.

We can experience loneliness even around other people. A spouse may feel lonely while sitting right next to the other spouse if there is no meaningful connection.

We can go to events, even church, and feel lonely during or right after the event. Loneliness tends to spread because the behavioral and thinking patterns that cause it tend to affect those around.

Not just in the US, but globally, people are losing meaningful, long-term relationships. Statistically, we have less close friends now than in the past.

Also, loneliness has been touted as the most important component of opioid addiction.

I've come to perceive that all human society worldwide is optimized for isolation and compartmentalized.

Even the more communal cultures, like Middle-Eastern or Asian, with extended families living in the same household for multiple generations.

We have distinct "spheres" with minimum overlap but almost no interfaces to mingle between them: Work, home, civilian, government, policing, shops, services, online, offline...

People in different spheres only interact for specific transactions, and then they're on their different ways.

70 comments and nobody pointed out that some of the sharpest minds in the tech industries spend their day making social networks and videogames more addictive.

My father died 16 years ago. My mother, I thought, was strong. My mother, I would think on different days, is very frail.

She did a lot to occupy herself. She enrolled in sewing classes, even though she knew a lot already, because it offered some company each week. She joined a group of friends to go visiting museums and sites and other things, for the same reason. She made sure to spend weekends with friends. She had her children with her, some times more frequently than others.

I believe she held up quite well for a number of years. I used to see her every week, once, twice, maybe speak on the phone when I couldn't go.

Her sewing teacher moved to the other side of town; she made the effort to still go there, but by 2018-2019 she was too tired to drive all that way for just two hours. She tried but in the end she stopped going. Then 2020. The museum group was cancelled. She couldn't go visit her friends on weekends. My siblings stopped visiting. My own visits became, for a while, less frequent but we talked every single night on the phone.

As soon as the April lockdowns ended, I started going almost every single day but it was just too late already. We put our masks and went out to the park just outside her building for a walk. Or grocery shopping. Or just stayed at home when the weather was sour.

Just those two months of March and April 2020, of rarely going outside, of being alone most of the day, were devastating. On the one hand, her physique was hit. Where she had been a healthy person before, she was now starting to feel quite tired even after "just" cooking, and then having difficulty just walking. But much more than that, much more profound, was the effect on her mind. Where she had been lucid and quick, keeping track of her appointments, her tasks, family, friends, events, etc, she started forgetting... well, everything. Most days now she doesn't remember what day of the week it is, even after being told just five minutes ago, or that she broke her hip and couldn't get up on her feet for some time. She has a very hard time keeping her attention through a conversation. The TV is mostly a mystery; she watches intently without being able to follow the plot, frequently asking what is happening or who the characters are.

She just called to ask why don't we go for lunch; she'll call my siblings too, she says. I explained that we were all going after lunch so it's easier. My brother, his wife and kids will eat there and then the rest will go visit and we will all get together. 15 minutes later she sends a short message inviting us all for lunch again.

There is a pattern to it, of course. I don't think she consciously knows but most of the things she says, most of her ideas, are about visiting, about staying there just a bit more. I can stay for a week and then, when I have to go, she'll suggest casually that I can stay if I want, that she can prepare a bed for me -which she really can't; I prepare hers-. I go out the door and she'll call me to go for dinner or something. She craves the company.

I think the lack of exercise was like a weight on her, a physical weight added to her muscles that slows her down and tires her. But I feel the loneliness was like a punch to her head every single day. A really hard but unseen blow that has accumulated day after day and has broken her.

I am broken-hearted, of course, but fortunately I've been able to accept it. Whatever happens, we'll go through it together, with a good disposition and as much of a smile as we can keep. But the really hard part is looking back, just three years back, and realizing just how hard of a fall it has been, how complete of a difference the loneliness has made.

Loneliness in the context of Western society is a result of the influence of American culture. It puts systems, politics and economic success far above the integrity of the human individual.

IMO the cure for loneliness is probably self fulfilling. The longer you are lonely the more you grow tired of being lonely and decide to intentionally do something about it.

Maybe it’s joining an exercise group, a hobby club, a church, a volunteer group, etc. Maybe it’s trying to work on yourself to achieve a goal or work up the courage to have a conversation with somebody special.

The output of loneliness should eventually be motivation to no longer be lonely and the determination to make it happen. It’s hard, but worth it.

A community of faith is at least a partial treatment.

Well even a literal god can't cure loneliness.

All negative emotions are down to unmet expectations. This isn't a rationalization. The culture we live in is full of unrealistic expectations.

Happiness is a matter of a deeper understanding your observations, the causes of all recognized outcomes, and staying focused on your outcomes. You write your own story. Free will is not an illusion just because there's an inequality of probabilities. Debugging yourself is like anything else.