Correlation is Not Causation, But Something is Driving American Despair
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Henry David Thoreau
I received a quiet letter, a multi-page outline of one man’s quiet desperation. Isolation, lonely, pressure, failure—these were the words used to describe his interior pain. I pored over the pages of mid-life existential angst, and so much of the language was familiar. The letter was a simple piece of the American gestalt, evidence of the crushing weight of the American experience.
As I wrote yesterday, America is plagued by deaths of despair—deaths by suicide, drug and alcohol overdose, or drug and alcohol-related medical conditions. Despair-linked mortality has skyrocketed since 2010, and though all demographics are affected, non-Hispanic white males seem to be most affected. These men are your friends, your husbands, your brothers, your sons. These men might be you.
Why the steep uptrend in deaths of despair?
I suspect there’s no singular cause to the marked increase in mortality. We’ve endured almost twenty years of war. The 2008 economic woes have robbed too many of their dreams of prosperity. There’s increasing social isolation as we turn to digital companionship (which is to say nothing of sex robots, a topic for another day). There’s been a correlative decrease in faith over the past decade, too. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, there’s been a marked decline in religious service attendance and faith identification since 2010.
Granted, correlation and causation are tricky animals. That said, it seems We The People (“the people, yes” as Carl Sandburg wrote) are searching for meaning. Notions of world peace and economic prosperity have worn thin. Organized religion has failed us, too. And the digital isolation buttressed by self-branding and celebrity consumption seems to running us ragged.
Are there solutions to our collective despair? I’m not sure. But come back tomorrow and let’s look at ways we might beat back the darkness.
***WAKE UP WITH ME***
THE BOOK OF WAKING UP —a book on addiction, attachment, and the Divine Love—launched TUESDAY so order a copy or ten at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookish (my favorite indie bookseller). Then, forward this post to a friend and ask them to read along.