Are You Living a Life of Quiet Despair? The American "Deaths of Despair" Epidemic and Your Hedge Against it.
In the months leading up to my Dry January news fast, I began researching the American phenomenon known as “deaths of despair.” It’s a new category of mortality, one which encompasses death by suicide or overdose, and according to experts, deaths of despair are on the rise. The rise has been so statistically significant, that the American mortality rate has fallen each of the last three years. In fact, according to a Newsweek article,
In 2017, the overall death rate from deaths of despair (45.8 people per 100,000) outpaced lung cancer, stroke and car crashes when adjusting for age, according to CDC data. That's an increase of more than 180 percent since 2000.
Why this seemingly sudden rise? According to an expert in the field, Anne Case, "The pillars that once helped give life meaning—a good job, a stable home life, a voice in the community—have all eroded." Interestingly, Case makes no mention of the religious structures and faith systems that bring full meaning to life. I wonder, could the erosion of faith in the west be a contributing factor? Could our lack of spiritual connection be driving the epidemic?
I’m not here to speculate on the drivers of despair, but instead, to wake to the reality of it. I’m hoping you’ll wake to it too, and that together, we can begin an examination of our own lives this week. Are we living lives of quiet despair in our ragged America? Are we following the cultural milieu down darker paths of isolation and addiction? Or are we living different kinds of lives, lives oriented to joy?
Today, examine your own life. Are you nurturing human connection above digital? Are you pursuing a spiritual meaning? When the pain of life comes knocking, do you turn to your family, community of faith, AA chapter, or therapist, or instead, do you load up on pain killers, alcohol, and digital stimulation? Examine, examine, examine. And if your examination exposes despair, ask for a little help. There’s no shame in it.
***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.
How it Feels to Give Up the News: A Dry January Update.
The second month of the year is upon us, which means my Dry January has come to an end. As you might recall, my participation in the month of sobriety was a little different. Instead of giving up booze—an attachment I kicked in 2013—I abstained from a sneakier attachment. The American attachment du jour: Breaking News.
This, perhaps, begs a series of questions.
Why did you give up the news?
In the closing months of 2019, I felt the draw to my phone during any moment of silence or solitude. I wasn’t drawn to social media apps, though. (I’d long since deleted Twitter and Facebook from my phone.) Instead, I opened Apple’s News app and scrolled the feed, taking in headline after headline. I could waste a quarter-hour scrolling headlines, and when I’d finished binging, it was as if I were bloated with negativity. Sick to my stomach. Sick in my brain. And still, I couldn’t quit.
How did you address the problem?
I dug down to the roots of the problem and deleted the News app from my phone. I ditched the CNN and Wall Street Journal apps, too. I avoided my go-to news sites except for the day a particular impeachment announcement hit the wire. (In my defense, that announcement related to my work, so I exercised common sense and followed a portion of the proceedings.) I did not tune into the twenty-four-hour spin cycle of Breaking Madness, nor did I stream the circus of current affairs on YouTube. (This, of course, means I missed every Colbert monolog in January.)
Did you read any news?
I didn’t quit the news cold turkey, of course. If a friend sent an article that was (a) unrelated to the political rancor in Washington, (b) from a newsworthy and quasi-objective source, and (c) about an issue that interested me, I’d read it. In total, I read less than a handful of articles per week, a significant reduction in my weekly news consumption.
By the end of the month, how’d you feel?
Giving up the endless stream of media worked some sort of cosmic magic. The first few days were odd, almost disconcerting. But as the weeks wore on, I realized that if I wanted to have a modicum of working knowledge about current affairs, I’d have to stretch into conversations with those in my everyday life. Many of those folks were champing at the bit to share their thoughts and opinions, and as we talked, I found the conversations ebbed and flowed, moved to deeper conversations about family or faith. Come to find out, most folks have a pretty nuanced viewed of the world. Most are not quite as myopic as the media machines might have you believe. (Sure, it’s a truth we all know, but it bears repeating from time to time.)
By the end of the month, I found myself less tormented by the constant stream of negativity and more connected to those around me. I even found a shift in my outlook. Was that feeling something like joy? If not joy, relief?
Did you replace the endless news scrolling with some other practice?
Truth be told, I still found myself scrolling on my cellphone. I scrolled the feeds of photographers on Instagram and scrolled a few Pinterest boards. (I’m currently curating a mood board for an upcoming project.) Yes, I know this might not be ideal, but still, scrolling beauty instead of madness seemed like a step in the right direction.
For the month of February, I’ll try to tackle the endless draw to my cellphone. I’ll try to limit my use even more. How? I’m not sure yet, but I’ll keep you posted.
How was your Dry January? Consider examining your own experience by asking the questions above. And then, feel free to shoot me an email with an update. Don’t bypass the practice.
***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.
A Life Examined: The Death of Stories
“The average Instagram user spends 28 minutes each day reading content on the platform,” the speaker said before pausing to let the statistic sink into the collective conference conciousness. “By contrast, that same user spends only 11 minutes reading in other mediums, including #books.” He, of course, did not hyperlink the comment, but my brain supplied the missing hashtag. This is what brains do in our increasing digital age, in our exile from an embodied experience.
He was a researcher, and so he was careful not to draw lines too bright. Correlation is not causation he said, and yet, there was a direct correlation between increasing smartphone use and incidents of depression, anxiety, and self-harm. And as he shared of the evolution of a species—from homosapiens to homoiPhonus—I couldn’t help but wonder: What does this mean for the human story? Put better: What does this mean for human stories?
Stories—throughout human history, they’ve formed the bedrock of who we are. We’ve drawn them on cave walls, scribbled them on parchments, and collected them in books. Those stories have been the foundation for our spiritual exploration. But in this new age of micro-blogging and what can only be described as digital cave painting, I wonder, are our new platforms strong enough to shoulder the weight of our stories?
Are they robust enough to support our need for literature—fiction and non-fiction alike? Will the storytelling masters—the modern Hugos, Chestertons, and Shelleys—be forced to ply their craft on digital platforms? Will they hide among our cousin’s family photos, the quick pics from the office new year’s party (the one where Steve wore that bra on his head), and the selfies of the insta-fluencers with the duck lips who photoshopped themselves into a Florentine backdrop? And will these short-form digital stories be of the same warp and weft of the stories we used to contemplate in the great (or even the almost good) books?
How are you preserving stories? Do you consume more insta-information than written content? If so, ask yourself: Does that trend lend to my longterm health and the longterm health of my community?
***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.
Stories are our Teachers
The church baptistery was locked, but the gate slats were just wide enough for me to slip my hand through and shoot a blind photo of the ceiling with my cellphone.
"Go ahead, she said."
I took the photo, pulled my hand back through, and saw the story of Christ painted on the ceiling in burnt desert colors.
The mural is painted just above the baptistery, the place where the child is held, head heavenward as the priest pours water over her hair.
"The first thing the baby sees during her baptism is the Christ-story, from birth to death," she said. "It’s the first thing she sees as she enters the church. And,” she said, leaning in, “this is how the church used stories for 1,500 years, sharing Christ with even the most illiterate."
We are born into this world craving mother’s milk. It is the first draught of life. The second draught is experienced in the stories we’re told in the silent places, places like the breast, the crib, and baptismal font.
***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.
Friday Poem: Silence #1
Today, I’m sharing a new poem in my Friday poetry series. This one is still a work in progress. I’m sharing the bones (pun intended) with you. Have thoughts? Send feedback.
Silence #1
Our bones sing songs
heard only in silent cells,
the rooms where the times
cannot reach.
I have heard these songs
in the morning fog,
the mists drowning
the cloying praise of men.
I have heard these songs
in the midnight hours,
mine harmonizing with hers.
Collected, we are a symphony
muted by our louder affections.
***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.
Feeling the Pleasures, Swimming in Joy
Yesterday, St. Johnny (of the Cross) reminded me (and consequently you) how to find (or “swim in”) true joy—bend the entirety of your life around service to the Divine Love of God. Yes, that’s a mountain of a task, and I often fall a few rises short of the peak. It is true: There are times I don’t suppose I’m “serving God,” as St. Johnny would say, and so, I find myself wading in the toe-waters of joy instead of swimming in its ocean.
It is true; I’m no different than any other human. Instead of serving God when my joy tank is empty, I turn to my pet pleasures. I assert my opinions on the news du jour on the forum du jour. I fall into work—writing, photo editing, cranking out legal documents. I buy another book I don’t need, spend time I don’t have reading it, and often find the experience luxuriously dissapointing. (For instance, I recently bought a shit horror novel because I thought it might entertain me for a few hours. It did not.) But does that mean that news, art, and literature cannot lead to joy per se?
I’m no guru, but I’m going all-in on my answer to that question: No.
I’ve mulled over the words of the Cross-figured Johnny over these last 24 hours, and it seems to me that a component of “serving God,” is using all created things as intended. Can’t we serve God by listening to the news and partnering with God to respond to the crises of the day? Can’t we use our work—writing, photo editing, any old work—to recreate the world into something more beautiful, more Divine? Can’t engage art gratefully (and graciously), thanking the Creator for gifting us the Divine spark of creation? Aren’t these all ways of recognizing, and thereby serving the Divine?
An Examination: Today, grab your journal, your grocery list, or a spent envelope, and start a new sort of list. Write down those things you might be prone to treat as vices. Next, imagine what it might look like to recognize the goodness of God in those things, and to pursue only that goodness. Imagine what it might look like to serve God using those created things. (Caveat: If your particular mechanism is heroin, binge drinking, porn, or gambling, skip this exercise and seek a qualified therapist.)
***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.
The Secret to Joy
Yesterday, I wrote how abstaining from the news throughout the month of January has made my soul lighter, maybe even full of joy. Joy—don’t we need more of it these days? But in the days that feel so divided and dark, how do we find it?
Today’s thought is simple, and it’s wrapped up in a quote by Saint John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish friar. He writes, "The soul of the one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, and is always in the mood for singing."
If you believe St. John of the Cross, the secret to joy is serving something bigger than (a) ourselves, (b) the twenty-four-hour news cycle, (c) our opinions about the rotting world turning political back handsprings around us. The secret to joy is found in loving, serving, and praising something more eternal.
***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.
Waking Leads to Waking
It is unwise to walk with an eye always to the sky, always looking for that holy escape hatch that pulls us to the immortal plane. Still, to keep the ears tuned to the things of earth—the breaking news and the commodification of anxiety—sets the human brain on fire. At least, it does mine.
Throughout this Dry January, I’ve cut out the news (please don’t pull me into the impeachment spin cycle until February). I’ve avoided the opinion snipers on Twitter. I’ve turned off my Medium notifications. I’ve unfollowed people on Instagram who twist it into something political. (I go there for beauty, not opinion.) This is not to say I’ve entered into anything like silence. I’ve not. But I have silenced the spitfire incivility of our current cultural moment.
In this piece of quiet, I’ve woken to a few truths. These are among those truths:
The world moves on, even without my anxiety over the crisis du jour;
My heart rate is demonstrably slower, three beats a minute according to my Fitbit;
Uninterrupted by the breaking news of broken political systems, I’m more focused;
There is an underground conversation beginning to stir among the people, one about searching for joy;
This underground conversation is spoken in whispers, and I’ve heard those whispers only since silencing the churn of news;
Though I’ve not found absolute silence (who would want it?), I’ve found something like an inner-quiet;
The world is a beautiful place if we keep the Powers from outshining the sun.
In The Book of Waking Up I wrote, “Waking gives way to waking, which gives way to waking, which gives way to waking.” In this Dry January, I’ve found this truth again. In your own practice, have you woken to new truths?
***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.
The First Friday Poem: Advent #1
Here I go, carving out a new streak. As I wrote this week, I’m setting out to publish a poem each Friday. Why? Because writing poetry opens my eyes to see the world differently and stretches my imagination. It serves as a creative tool for the examined life, too.
I’ve been working today’s poem since the Advent season, those few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a particularly dark season in some ways, a season in which my family parted ways with a church we’d been members of for a half-decade. (This might explain the tone.) It’s a poem built around the liturgical season of bygone weeks, and it was inspired in part by Gerard Manley Hopkins’ classic poem, “When Kingfishers Catch Fire.”
Advent #1
Hopkins’ Christ played in the places
where the living catch fire,
kingfishers and kin alike.
My Christ stands silent
where the devil dances:
in the copper confusion;
before the Advent candles
burn to the bottom;
before the divine baby
feasts at the ever-virgin’s breast;
before love grows into Knowledge
of how a child’s play
slits the soft stretch
of winter’s throat.
***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.
A Dry January Update
In the new decade, I offered a sort of challenge: participate in Dry January with me, a month of laying off your particularly addiction, vice, bad habit, or coping mechanism of choice. Some of you might have chosen to lay off the booze or porn or shopping. For those of us who might not struggle with those particular behaviors (or for those of us who’ve struggled so hard in the past that we gave them up forever), we might have chosen to abstain from difference vices. What was my particular Dry January commitment?
Give up the news.
It’s a tricky abstinence, going cold turkey off the stream of information that animates so much of our society. I deleted the News app from my phone. I’ve avoided scrolling the Twitter feed for the hottest take on the most recent What-The-Hell? event. I’ve white-knuckled through my cravings for The Daily, the New York Times daily news podcast. Why?
The News: What is it but an inducement for anxiety these days? What is it but a roiling, angsty cauldron of angry opinion? What is it but corporate-sponsored argument, a divisive device of control, an inducement to pull out your pitchforks and string up your less-enlightened neighbor? And even though I understand these very real truths, what am I but an avid consumer of all that anxiety and anger?
In the days leading up to the new decade, I sensed my anxiety and anger ratcheting up each time I turned to the news. Belly full of opinions, I gave sideways glances at my neighbors who watched certain news networks. I grew more suspicious of the political pundits (particularly those of faith) who supported particular political candidates and grew even more suspicious of the American people who seemed to love those particular pundits. I teetered on the verge of hating my American sister and loathing my American brother. And so, I quit.
I’ve stuck with my personal Dry January challenge, and it’s cleared my mind. In just sixteen days, my skepticism has waned, and it’s allowed me to see the neighbor behind the talking head. It’s increased my capacity for compassion, even if I’ve not put it into action perfectly. The anxiety of a world falling apart doesn’t sit on my chest like a gorilla escaped from the zoo. My Dry January commitment has kept me off my phone more, too—an added bonus.
If you’re participating in your own Dry January, take some time today to examine the differences it’s made in your daily life. If you’re not participating, it’s not too late to start, though you might consider extending the exercise by a couple of weeks. But whether you’re participating or not, let’s keep walking into this new decade with eyes wide open. Let’s keep moving into something like inner sobriety. (How do we keep waking to sobriety? Read below the asterisks.)
***THE BOOK IS HERE! ORDER AND FORWARD***
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.