Young people are far more likely than senior citizens to report being lonely and in poor health, a surprising survey of 20,000 Americans released Tuesday shows… The overall national loneliness score was alarmingly high at 44 on a 20-to-80 scale, but the prevalence of social isolation among those ages 18 to 22 raises even more concern. (1)

Increased teen suicide rate, school shootings, and the opiate crisis: Is it really all that surprising that our young people are lonely?

We recognize the problem but instead of digging deeper to find the root cause, we superficially promote less guns, more school security, and increased availability of drug treatment programs. Nobody, however, seems interested in asking why all the loneliness? Could it be that it is actually the by-product of the “cultural freedom” we seem so intent on promoting?

In this digital age, our young people have unprecedented access to sexual partners, mates, and friends? So why so lonely? The internet promised us a global village but ended up transforming us into digital monks. I would argue that the loneliness that plagues our young people isn’t due to a lack of personal contacts but lack of a cosmic presence. They don’t feel alone in their communities but rather feel alone in the universe.

“Most addicts develop habits while in search of community. They don’t want to share their drugs. But they don’t want to take them alone.” (Linda Yablonsky, a former heroin addict) (2) 

I would suggest that Linda’s observation is just as applicable to our youth today. They want to be individually unique and create their own reality, but they don’t want to do it alone. Ironically, the result is a large community gathering that shares nothing but loneliness.

The postmodern project calls each of us to create our own purpose, live by our own rules, and do what makes us happy. It insists that we become the master of our fates, the captain of our souls. In other words, we must sail alone. The problem is that sooner or later we will have to put aside our swashbuckling in order to swab the poop deck. Instead of navigating reality by the Southern Cross we are told to follow the bright light of our inner spark, but sadly, introspective navigation is incapable of seeing danger on the horizon and without a crew to help us we end up crashing on the reefs of reality.

I would suggest that the source of the problem is the original sin of wanting to become like God. Thinking we can create our own personal kingdom without boundaries we also end up with no citizens.  We are forced to be king, handyman, and chief bottle washer, which is great as long you don’t have to fix a broken faucet or clean up after a night of hard drinking. The world becomes millions of kingdoms ruled by “divine” despots who are constantly stepping across the line and gerrymandering the boundaries of their personal fiefdoms.

“The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even natural to worship unnatural things. The posture of the idol might be stiff and strange; but the gesture of the worshiper was generous and beautiful. He not only felt freer when he bent; he actually felt taller when he bowed. Henceforth anything that took away the gesture of worship would stunt and maim him forever.” (Chesterton)

We need to show them that it is far more beautiful to take a knee than to assume a throne.

We can’t fix this problem by finding our young people more friends, setting up mixers, or starting chat rooms because what they really need is to leave their lonely one-man micronarratives behind and enter into the communion of the great cloud of witnesses that inhabit God’s metanarrative. The postmodern dream of singing together in perfect harmony will never be realized if all the participants are intent on singing bad karaoke to One is the Loneliest Number. Wouldn’t life be much easier if we didn’t have to continually construct fake Hollywood sets to keep our personal worldview illusions alive? Wouldn’t it be more freeing to live in a world constructed by a far superior Carpenter? It’s tough to accept the fact that our “divine powers” have mortal limits.

It’s no mystery to our young people that the world is a lonely place. They know they are spiritually broken, but their schools tell them that spirit doesn’t exist. Their friends tell them spirit does exist, but it is found by looking for the cosmic light within. The problem is that they either turn to happy chemicals to fix their unhappy chemical nature or they turn to the divine spark inside that they already know has become an arsonist and set their personal lives ablaze.

If you think you are the most interesting person in the world then you are left with nothing but a house of mirrors to admire yourself and a Dos Equis to drown out the sorrow of realizing that it’s lonely at the top.

(1) Loneliness Study

(2) Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1998), 167.

Photo by Rhendi Rukmana on Unsplash