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An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

nytimes.com

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Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#71

Post by ThrowMeDown01 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #32
humanrebar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make new friends of all ages all the time. At church. It does provide "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other". And not by coincidence. One of the major goals of church is to help people form healthy and significant relationships (that is, friendships).

Yeah, as an atheist, the weekly unforced meetup you guys have is the one thing I do envy. I wonder how many of the churchgoers secretly have no real faith and are only there for the company...

As an atheist, I've been on two Catholic pilgrimages and countless church services.

My first pilgrimage was to Lourdes in the South of France - as a member of the German army. During an introduction course in the first weeks after joining the army we were told we were entitled to certain programs, and getting time off from the army. After basic training and entering regular service I went to the base's priest, told I'm I'm an atheist and that I'm interested in going to Lourdes. No problem. Best party of my life I must say, in a landscape straight from a movie (but I think I was the only one of ~35,000 soldier pilgrims to walk into the hills, even if they started right at the edge of town).

Second pilgrimage was with a Catholic girlfriend, walking from dawn to dusk to a Catholic pilgrimage destination for several days. Very strenuous. I even "spread god's word" in a sense, when towards the end somebody thought I still looked fresh and strong so I got to carry one of the loudspeaker backpacks used to spread the prayers spoken by a priest at the end of the procession along the long line of pilgrims :)

Nobody cares what you are. Just go if you want. There even are priests that are atheists: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/lutherans-in-a-quandary-over...

> Alarm bells started ringing in earnest last June, when the priest in question, Thorkild Grosboel, pastor of Taarbaek, a town near Copenhagen, went on to elaborate his views in an interview. "There is no heavenly God, there is no eternal life, there is no resurrection," he said, with typical Scandinavian matter of factness.

> Grosboel has since refused to step aside and insists that his lack of belief in some of the theological foundations on which the Christian church is built, does not stop him fulfilling the duties for which he is paid.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#72

Post by yellowbuilding »

taway_1212 wrote: post #65
yellowbuilding wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. A friend who I spoke to for the first time in a long time made a pretty good point to me the other day. Neither of us are liberals, btw. Both of us are into so many of the same things. We just have different careers, and we are approximately equally jealous of eachother’s careers. We talked about what we have been doing while feeling lonely and we each had different stories of why we were not able to spend tim…

Can you give examples of friends losing “everything” when following their dreams? What happened? Excellent comment BTW.

I don’t think “following dreams” actually describes what I mean. I just mean doing anything except the safest thing to do, or making any sudden moves that requires a new start. Watching friends try to change careers has been cringeworthy. You have to be willing to lose everything. I think that takes all the fun out of life. It makes you feel absolutely trapped. Maybe i do love my life just how it is, but it’s hard to say when I cannot even visualize working toward anything else. I am just so much more fulfilled when working toward something. I don’t really get much out of just trying to save money so that’s I can risk it all at some point down the road. That feels like a trap. My happiest times have always been when I can be relatively confident I will not lose everything and I am in a place to contribute to something with other people. That is what I mean by “dream” and I currently have one of them, but it’s not a dream. It was once, or, it was at least a goal. I think “goal” is what’s I really mean. I want the ability to have goals in life that are not mere consumption, but that do not require overwhelming risk. The goals can be lame or common everyday things, but more real than a hobby and less deadly than risking homelessness.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#73

Post by yellowbuilding »

goldfeld wrote: post #61
yellowbuilding wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. A friend who I spoke to for the first time in a long time made a pretty good point to me the other day. Neither of us are liberals, btw. Both of us are into so many of the same things. We just have different careers, and we are approximately equally jealous of eachother’s careers. We talked about what we have been doing while feeling lonely and we each had different stories of why we were not able to spend tim…

> We don’t have the privacy to have a multifaceted life without feeling like some fraud. You hint at the answer, that aside from financial obligations nothing stands in the way of finding who you really are but yourself. Once a person finds confidence in expressing their true desires and aspirations, others take notice and start valuing and admiring the person, like in everything else it's a herd/popular mentality wh…

This suggests that I want more money or consumption, and that’s wrong. Nor do I want popularity. Quite the opposite. Popularity and attention are really the main problem, if anything. Who we are is defined by what we have done more than any time in history. Every day that passes is further locking ourselves into our cages of individuality. How can popularity and followers, like you mention, be our only hope for change when they are also the ties that are trapping us to our current trajectories?

Specialist vs. generalist gets more at the problem I think we were talking about, but even the fact that it is such a debated concept seems off. Something seems wrong on a bigger level. Sometimes you need a specialist and sometimes a generalist, and we are highly adaptable creatures. It is strange this thing leads to so much anxiety. I think people are just worrying tremendously over which one are they to an unhealthy degree, and because they are scared to death of failure. Who can blame them?

I’m sure some love popularity and never want to do anything else with their life, but that is an unrealistic bar we have created for everybody in our society. So I guess that seems like a thing to look at.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#74

Post by ThrowMeDown01 »

bobbygoodlatte wrote: post #49
humanrebar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. We can blame technology. Or we can actually go out and join something. Maybe serve at a local food bank. Worst case, you're still lonely but some hungry people get fed. Incidentally, how are you going to find a good food bank to help out at? I bet it looks like "technology": search engines, smart phone apps, web pages, email, digital calendars, navigation instructions, and signup forms.

Of course this is great advice for an individual. It's always possible to effect change at the margins. But this sort of advice at a population-level feels meaningless. It's entirely fair to search for root causes to large-scale dysfunction. Otherwise the trend will just grow worse

I like to point out that the English language has a beautiful way to describe it by having two distinct words ("anyone", "everyone") instead of just one, unlike my native German ("jeder"):

If something somebody proposes in response to a population-wide problem works for anyone it should also be tested if it works for everyone. A lot of "how to get ahead and gain wealth" suggestions come to mind too that fail the second test.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#75

Post by badpun »

yellowbuilding wrote: post #72
taway_1212 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give examples of friends losing “everything” when following their dreams? What happened? Excellent comment BTW.

I don’t think “following dreams” actually describes what I mean. I just mean doing anything except the safest thing to do, or making any sudden moves that requires a new start. Watching friends try to change careers has been cringeworthy. You have to be willing to lose everything. I think that takes all the fun out of life. It makes you feel absolutely trapped. Maybe i do love my life just how it is, but it’s hard to…

I can relate to that. However, you have to realise that you literally want to have everything - both the comfort and safety AND a fullfilling life. This conflict within people has probably been going on from the beginning of time (it's greatly depicted in "The Revolutionary Road", a film by Sam Mendes (director of American Beauty)). I think that in the end, unless you're very lucky, you need to give up one or the other to some extent. Personally, I think I'd be more comfortable living my next 30 years as an at least somewhat free pauper, than spending my days in a comfortable, but depressing gilded cage - but that's a choice that everyone needs to make for themselves.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#76

Post by watwut »

badpun wrote: post #75
yellowbuilding wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think “following dreams” actually describes what I mean. I just mean doing anything except the safest thing to do, or making any sudden moves that requires a new start. Watching friends try to change careers has been cringeworthy. You have to be willing to lose everything. I think that takes all the fun out of life. It makes you feel absolutely trapped. Maybe i do love my life just how it is, but it’s hard to…

I can relate to that. However, you have to realise that you literally want to have everything - both the comfort and safety AND a fullfilling life. This conflict within people has probably been going on from the beginning of time (it's greatly depicted in "The Revolutionary Road", a film by Sam Mendes (director of American Beauty)). I think that in the end, unless you're very lucky, you need to give up one or the oth…

You can have comfort, safety and fullfilling life. There is absolutely no contradition between the three - unless your value system defines fullfiling as lack of safety. Comfortable does not imply depressing. Pointless and empty and without something to do implies depressing.

Maybe one reason for problems with loneliness and what not are these dichotomies - people believe they have to choose between two extremes and expect others to choose between two extremes - not allowing for harmony between multiple needs and wishes.

For example, the parent feels need to pretend to be obsessive careerist type. Had he did not pretended so, his peers would put him into familly men bracket and he woild be taken less seriously and his work life would suffer. He needs both, but had to choose only one, because we collectively don't allow for those compromises.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#77

Post by baddox »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #67
baddox wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the tendencies to feel and act similar to what you describe, but I think these tendencies can often be harmful and I often try to resist some of them. Feel free to contact me if you ever want to talk about this and other randomness with a kindred spirit. My email is in my HN profile and my Twitter is the same as my HN username.

Heads up, your HN profile is blank.

Thanks! I don’t know why I thought email addresses on HN were public for a minute there. Fixed!

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#78

Post by esturk »

tootahe45 wrote: post #48

I know it's opinion, but it's hard to take the NYT seriously when the writers always blame Republicans where politics is almost completely irrelevant.

Which party is more likely to shame people for asking help? Such as asking for more social security benefits?

I mean it sounds good on paper to say "if you're not successful then that means you're just lazy" but there are several factors preventing people from getting help. There are several layers to the problem from a culture of being too proud to ask, a culture of exceptionalism, a culture of individualism, etc. All of these tendencies which resonates more with being a Republican than not.

Note that I am not saying these are bad traits, just that they would contribute to a result of increased loneliness.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#79

Post by badpun »

watwut wrote: post #76
badpun wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to that. However, you have to realise that you literally want to have everything - both the comfort and safety AND a fullfilling life. This conflict within people has probably been going on from the beginning of time (it's greatly depicted in "The Revolutionary Road", a film by Sam Mendes (director of American Beauty)). I think that in the end, unless you're very lucky, you need to give up one or the oth…

You can have comfort, safety and fullfilling life. There is absolutely no contradition between the three - unless your value system defines fullfiling as lack of safety. Comfortable does not imply depressing. Pointless and empty and without something to do implies depressing. Maybe one reason for problems with loneliness and what not are these dichotomies - people believe they have to choose between two extremes and…

In the context of this forum, comfort and safety means a cushy tech job. I don't know how many people feel fulfilled in those, but my guess is that the majority isn't (esp. among people with more than a couple years of experience). The dichotomy seems very real to me.

Regarding your example of a father that needs to pretend he's laser-focused on the job - this is what I was talking about. There are people for whose career is a #1 priority, and these people naturally get the prized positions (managerial, or work on interesting projects etc.) in work environments, at the cost of everything else in their lives. Your example,a a father who secretely does not give a shit, still wants to work on these interesting projects, and thus misrepresents himself as someone who gives a shit. He literally wants to get something that, in a just world, he shouldn't get. He is not accepting the dichotomy.

Of course, the flip side is that there's plenty of other frauds who also misrepresent themselves, to the point of anyone who's open about his real priorities sticks out like a sore thumb - at which point you need to pretend just to maintain a mediocre job, and not to get the prized one. The reason for that is, in the grand scheme of things, even those "mediocre" tech jobs still pay six figures for working on a computer in a climate -controlled office. These are dream jobs for 90% of the population, so the competition for them is intense, hence all the theatrics (like for example people begrudgingly doing personal projects on Github in their spare time to fake passion). I imagine there's much more honesty amongst brick layers or truck drivers, as they don't have people coming for their jobs from all angles.

Re: An Epidemic of Loneliness in America?

#80

Post by [deleted] »

humanrebar wrote: post #27
wenc wrote: post #18

Here's an interesting article: "Why is it hard to make friends over 30?" [1] "As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-o…

I make new friends of all ages all the time. At church. It does provide "proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other". And not by coincidence. One of the major goals of church is to help people form healthy and significant relationships (that is, friendships).

[deleted]
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