I think our culture is making loneliness a disease. It is a disease anyway in the literal sense in that dis (difficult) ease (comfort) certainly applies.
Also I think loneliness is the foundation of many other diseases. And I think there is an epidemic of it in our country today. Not just among the elderly, but among the kids and teens and married and unmarried, young and old. It is probably natural to suffer from it occasionally, but it seems to be escalating to the epidemic proportions in our society.
It seems to worsen as more of us are pushed closer together with urbanization and over population. I think I see it more acutely in big cities.
The other day I saw an ad on TV for one of the prozac type drugs to treat what they called "Social Phobia." The ad pictured what was obviously a lonely teenager who was given the drug and in the next scene was miraculously smiling and suddenly the life of the party. What is wrong with this picture? And we wonder why we are 'drugging our way into the twenty-first century.' Our young people are learning even from the second grade that any problem should be addressed with a drug.
In the past, war and adversity brought people together and that happened at the Murrah Bombing and on 9-11 for a short time. But now that we are at war, it's nothing like I read about WWI and WWII when America pulled together and the united effort certainly must have eased the loneliness. Whether our country is right or wrong, we should pull together as a family would if facing adversity.
In the World Wars, there was dissention, but people sold their ration coupons and bought war bonds. Men and women who didn't go to war worked in factories and women sewed bandages.
The reparations in Europe were as dangerous and death ridden as ours are in Iraq today, but people united behind America to fight for freedom and the united effort seemed to lead to less loneliness.
Now no cause joins us together. Causes only seem to separate us. I'm not sure why. But I believe if we recognize the problem and study it, we can find a solution.
smile

[ June 01, 2004, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: smilinize ]