How Your Loneliness is Killing You And Everyone Else…

I came across this article written by Charlie Hoehn, a man who wrote a book on how to play and how play chases away loneliness.

It’s mostly for men, but women can get a lot out of it as well. Everyone experiences loneliness right?

It’s called “Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety”.

Here is Charlie Hoehn discussing some issues his readers are dealing with.

The Tragedy

In the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting by a seemingly random white man with no ties to religious fanaticism or political extremism, I thought Hoehn’s point is significant.

The fact that he is a man is important too.

Hoehn stakes a stab at examining the mass shooter’s motives.

Many want to categorize the act as simply “pure evil.” Some want to blame it on the media or on the (lack of) gun control, etc.

However, Hoehn says that absolves us from looking more deeply at ourselves and those around us and what we might be missing.

After all, self-transformation is the only thing that really changes the world. Don’t you agree?

Charlie Hoehn admits he is not a psychiatrist, but a guy who “studies mental health.” He also makes the point that he’s not debating politics or gun control laws.

He is saying that he’s interested in what causes a man to use guns (or any other potentially lethal item such as a car) so destructively against his fellow human beings.

I think he makes some great points. Ultimately Hoehn is asking what is eroding the American male’s emotional health.

The number one issue is chronic loneliness.

The Loneliness

Young boys in the United States , like anyone else, need touching, nurturing, warmth, compassion, and close relationships.

However, those natural human qualities erode early in a young man’s life, if he ever got much of it at all.

When an entire generation of boys grow into men who are devoid of a natural connection with humanity, it makes it so much easier to descend into various forms of destruction.

Whether that destruction is directed toward the environment, other human beings, or themselves.

And God help a man if he tries to ask for help except when moving furniture. It gets so deeply ingrained, that asking for help is tantamount to inherent weakness.

The inability to admit vulnerabilities unfortunately leads to truck loads of self deception.

So, for many American men, they spend much of their time posturing instead of being real, authentic and dare I say human.

The Bullshit

And therein lies the bullshit.

It’s the bullshit we tell ourselves that does the most damage.

Bullshit crosses up the internal wires. Our thoughts get waaaay out of whack. All because of bullshit.

I know you guys know what I’m talking about. We’ve all seen guys (some women too) who say the right things, but aren’t congruent in their actions.

Their bullshit is starting to show.

We’ve seen it in ourselves. The more bs we tell ourselves the more we want to reach for that beer, a joint, the porn channel or that bag of cookies.

Finally when it gets bad enough (read: isolating and distancing us from all of humanity) bullshit can turn violent.

Sometimes that starts out as verbal violence. Attacking someone with words is common and celebrated in certain ways in American culture.

Next on the rung of isolation is physical abuse and violence that can quickly turn deadly… for ourselves and others.

The sense of isolation and loneliness that so many men feel, creates the psychological chasm that allows a person to see all of humanity as the “enemy.”

The Mask

Hoehn also mentions a documentary called The Mask You Live In, which explains how boys in American society are ultimately shaped into mentally unstable adults.

I have not seen it but here is the trailer…

Some of you may have heard of Simon Sinek.

In Charlie Hoehn’s article Simon Sinek is quoted as saying this:

“We’re seeing a rise of loneliness and isolation. No one kills themselves when they’re hungry; we kill ourselves when we’re lonely. And we act out, as well.

In the 1960’s, there was one school shooting.
In the 1980’s, there were 27.
In the 1990’s, there were 58.
In the past decade, there have been over 120.

It has nothing to do with guns, it has to do with people feeling lonely. How do we combat the loneliness that kids are feeling? All of them attacked people in their own community, and all of them attack people they blamed for their own loneliness.”

Whether you agree with him completely or not Sinek does make a good point.

The bottom line is… as our comforts, conveniences, and technology based living has expanded we’ve become much more isolated.

All the computer devices in the world don’t fill the void our lack of connection has created.