Many years ago, when I was a reporter for a newspaper based in Texas, I wrote a series of stories about loneliness.
The idea came from an interview I had done with Oral Roberts, the late television evangelist and founder of the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based university that bears his name. Roberts told me during the interview that be believed loneliness was the single greatest illness in America.
The idea intrigued me and led to a series of articles about loneliness and people who were struggling with lives of isolation and separation in various settings around the country.
My interviewees included:
A 16-year-old girl in a southwest Texas group home
A 75-year-old man in an exclusive Atlanta retirement facility
A middle-aged widow left alone on the family farm after her husband’s death
A gay (and anonymous) United Methodist minister
While the circumstances that created the loneliness — along with anxiety, depression and despair — of these people differed, one common theme stood out: Loneliness was not mainly about being alone or isolated from other people. The child lived with 20 or so other children and several adults. The elderly man had not only family that came to visit, but numerous “neighbors” in the retirement home. The rural widow had a large, extended family. The minister had a congregation of more than 300.
Yet, each in his or her own way talked about not being valued. Each told stories about the meaninglessness of his or her life because of a lack of purpose. Nearly all were objects of loving concern from others, but none felt included as an active participant in the larger community.
I am not a psychologist or a sociologist, and must leave educated recommendations for the full analysis and treatment of this illness to the professionals. Yet, I cannot imagine the malady is not a major factor in today’s sharp increase in suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence and socio-political paranoia.
And, the ongoing retreat from “geographic community” to “internet community” does not seen to be a positive direction for a world suffering more and more from a loss of meaningful interaction.
For the first six of my seven decades of life, “community involvement for the betterment of all” mainly meant working where each of us lives, with the people physically in our lives — religiously, governmentally, socially, educationally.
For the past 10 years — and increasingly with each new generation — the concept of “local” has moved from a geographic definition to an electronic one, adding to our loneliness. Our efforts to find value and meaning for our lives more and more involve who we can gather online for our “tribe” around the world, and less and less on how to connect meaningfully with our next-door neighbor, the person sitting next to us at the coffee shop, the family beside us in the pew, or those elected to serve us in local government.
I wish I were smart enough to offer a “magic bullet” solution to the illness I wrote about so many years ago. And, I wish people with doctoral degrees and great wisdom had come up with something better than a new anxiety pill to deal with the pain of the under-valued and the lonely. Neither has taken place.
While we are waiting for solutions, however, we might all do well just to lay down this newspaper, shut off the TV, turn off talk radio, shut down our computers, turn off our cellphones and go introduce ourselves to the people who live next door.
If we all listen a lot, talk a little and learn to include and value our neighbors, who knows what could happen? At least it’s worth a try.
Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. His weekly column appears on the Opinion page each Sunday. Contact him at [email protected]
