Loneliness Is Not Just Teenage Angst-- And It's Very Bipartisan

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known

Don't know where it goes

But it's home to me, and I walk alone

I walk this empty street

On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Where the city sleeps

And I'm the only one, and I walk alone

I walk alone, I walk alone

I walk alone, I walk a…

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

Sometimes, I wish someone out there will find me

'Til then, I walk alone

I'm walking down the line

That divides me somewhere in my mind

On the borderline

Of the edge, and where I walk alone

Read between the lines

What's fucked up, and everything's alright

Check my vital signs

To know I'm still alive, and I walk alone

-Green Day, Blvd of Broken Dreams

And let’s not forget You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go by Dylan, How to Fight Loneliness by Wilco, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams, So Lonely by The Police, Lonely Boy by the Black Keys, One Is the Loneliest Number by Filter, Are You Lonesome Tonight? by Elvis, Only The Lonely by Roy Orbison… all classic songs about a very basic human condition--loneliness, which all too commonly leads to anxiety, depression and an overall decreased quality of life, including hypertension, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Vivek Murthy was appointed surgeon general by Obama and vigorously opposed by the NRA and their gun-loving allies. He was confirmed at the end of 2014 and then was reappointed by Biden in 2020. Yesterday his NY Times OpEd wasn’t about the dangers inherent in the gun violence epidemic, it was about the dangers inherent in the loneliness epidemic. “At any moment,” he wrote, “about one out of every two Americans is experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. This includes introverts and extroverts, rich and poor, and younger and older Americans. Sometimes loneliness is set off by the loss of a loved one or a job, a move to a new city, or health or financial difficulties— or a once-in-a-century pandemic. Other times, it’s hard to know how it arose but it’s simply there. One thing is clear: Nearly everyone experiences it at some point. But its invisibility is part of what makes it so insidious. We need to acknowledge the loneliness and isolation that millions are experiencing and the grave consequences for our mental health, physical health and collective well-being.”

This week, for the first time, I will be proposing a national framework to rebuild social connection and community in America. Loneliness is more than just a bad feeling. When people are socially disconnected, their risk of anxiety and depression increases. So does their risk of heart disease (29 percent), dementia (50 percent), and stroke (32 percent). The increased risk of premature death associated with social disconnection is comparable to smoking daily— and may be even greater than the risk associated with obesity.

Loneliness and isolation hurt whole communities. Social disconnection is associated with reduced productivity in the workplace, worse performance in school, and diminished civic engagement. When we are less invested in one another, we are more susceptible to polarization and less able to pull together to face the challenges that we cannot solve alone— from climate change and gun violence to economic inequality and future pandemics. As it has built for decades, the epidemic of loneliness and isolation has fueled other problems that are killing us and threaten to rip our country apart.

Given these extraordinary costs, rebuilding social connection must be a top public health priority for our nation. It will require reorienting ourselves, our communities, and our institutions to prioritize human connection and healthy relationships. The good news is we know how to do this.

First, we must strengthen social infrastructure— the programs, policies, and structures that aid the development of healthy relationships. That means supporting school-based programs that teach children about building healthy relationships, workplace design that fosters social connection, and community programs that bring people together.

Second, we have to renegotiate our relationship with technology, creating space in our lives without our devices so we can be more present with one another. That also means choosing not to take part in online dialogues that amplify judgment and hate instead of understanding.

Finally, we have to take steps in our personal lives to rebuild our connection to one another— and small steps can make a big difference. This is medicine hiding in plain sight: Evidence shows that connection is linked to better heart health, brain health and immunity. It could be spending 15 minutes each day to reach out to people we care about, introducing ourselves to our neighbors, checking on co-workers who may be having a hard time, sitting down with people with different views to get to know and understand them, and seeking opportunities to serve others recognizing that helping people is one of the most powerful antidotes to loneliness.

If loneliness and isolation have left you struggling with distressing feelings, reach out to someone supportive or your health care provider, and if it is a crisis, call 988. And if you go through significant social changes, be open with your health care provider about them, as this may help them understand and manage potential health effects.

… Every generation is called to take on challenges that threaten the underpinnings of society. Addressing the crisis of loneliness and isolation is one of our generation’s greatest challenges. By building more connected lives and more connected communities, we can strengthen the foundation of our individual and collective well-being and we can be better poised to respond to the threats we are facing as a nation.

This work will take all of us: schools, workplaces, community organizations, government, health workers, public health professionals, individuals, families and more working together. And it will be worth it because our need for human connection is like our need for food and water: essential for our survival. The joy I felt being reconnected with my friends and family is possible for our nation.

Obviously, it isn't just musicians; some of the greatest literary masterpieces grapple with loneliness. Although they’re all being banned or burned in Florida and Texas, think of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, which follows the story of teenage Holden Caulfield as he struggles with feelings of isolation and loneliness after being expelled from his school; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which explores the loneliness and isolation of the monster after his creator rejects hm and leaves him to fend for himself; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which deals with Boo Radley’s issues of loneliness and isolation, since he is shunned by the community and lives in seclusion; Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical Bell Jar about her experiences struggling with feelings of loneliness and isolation after a mental breakdown; Gabriel Garcia Marquez epic One Hundred Years of Solitude which explores the theme of loneliness through the generations of the Buendia family; Camus’ dense, existential The Stranger, which tells the story of a detached and emotionally distant man who is isolated from others due to his lack of emotional connection to the world around him; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the loneliness of Jay Gatsby, who is wealthy and successful but ultimately lonely due to his inability to connect with others on a deeper level; Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which deals with the loneliness and isolation of Sethe, who is haunted by the trauma of her past and struggles to form meaningful relationships with others; and of course the Hemingway novella The Old Man and the Seawhich delves into an elderly, isolated fisherman, Santiago, who is isolated at sea and can’t connect with the world around him.

I don’t want to leave out Kafka’s surreal novel The Metamorphosis in which Gregor Samsa, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect and is rejected and isolated by his family and society. I’m sure in school you were asked to memorize Dylan Thomas’ 1947 masterpiece, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” which is a powerful meditation on the inevitability of death and the need to resist it with all our might. It urges us to fight against the dying of the light, to rage and burn with life even in the face of death. Meanwhile, the narrator knows that when his father passes, profound loneliness awaits him.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

You’re wondering which painters have explored loneliness? It’s a tougher question but let me suggest the most obvious: Edward Hopper who is best known for his depictions of the isolation of urban life, like in “Nighthawks.”

Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Munch and Grant Wood were obviously thinking about or experiencing loneliness as a human condition when they created some of their best known and loved masterpieces. And as for films, how about, Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Lost In Translation by Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze’s Her and Lynch’s The Elephant Man? Oh, yeah, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Michel Gondry explores the loneliness and heartbreak of a couple, Joel and Clementine, both struggling with feelings of isolation and disconnection from the world, as they basically try to erase each other from their memories after a breakup.