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Loneliness is not just a matter of being alone. The monk with his vow of
silence may not feel lonely; the individual in an uncongenial group may feel very
lonely indeed. So loneliness is a matter of the mind and spirit as well as the
body. The richness of life lies in the companionship of a person with whom
one has an emotional connection and perhaps a physical relationship, one who
thinks in like terms and talks the same language. It is a person whose views
on other people, the world in general, and God coincide. Unmarried people
often find this in parents, so the loss of parents is perhaps unduly traumatic in
their case.
The majority of people get married and find most of these outlets in the other
person, if the marriage is happy. So bereavement, especially if untimely, is a
prime cause of loneliness. Suddenly the house is empty, and there is nobody,
even kind friends, children and relations, with whom one can quite
communicate. The remedy? Time, and the determination to live the kind of life
the other person would have hoped for. Remarriage? For some people, no
doubt. Not for everybody. There is no real remedy for this kind of loneliness.
The fact is that widows and widowers, previously happily married, have a much
increased lifespan nowadays. To have to live alone from say age sixty to ninety
is no longer uncommon, and medical advance has to be counted as another
prime cause of loneliness. It is not so long since people regarded survival
beyond the age of fifty as a bonus. Today, the percentage of pensioners in
Western communities is constantly rising. As an example, Greenwich in
London (pop 11/2m) has 1/2m pensioners. So much social work, both municipal
and private, has to be geared to the elderly, and much of it to the lonely elderly.
This is why loneliness as a social problem is increasingly important. Very often
the problem is exacerbated by extreme old age and sickness. To become
housebound compounds the problem.
Another reason for the loneliness of the elderly is the mobility of younger
people. In Britain, the old tradition was that children would house their parents,
so that three generations might sit round the same fireside. Today, both job
requirements and the cost of housing in or near the great
conurbations mean that the young family moves away and can only pay a very occasional visit to
the elderly parents. The late 20th century is seeing the collapse of the 'nuclear'
family, and the old concept of mutual responsibility seems to be ebbing away.
This means that a wide variety of social provisions, ranging from subsidized
travel to 'meals on wheels' to home nursing has to be made today by local
authorities and charitable organizations.
This problem is less acute in country areas and sometimes in certain areas of
the conurbations, where the old concept of community and neighborliness is
still extant. There is less need to be lonely in the village, where all residents are
traditionally interested in each other. This mutual support is very noticeable in
e.g. many villages in South Wales, where there is much unemployment and a
degree of poverty. The flight of the young, however, also applies to villages,
especially in agricultural areas, where farm work is no longer labor-intensive
and where property prices have been pushed up by second-home owners.
Another cause of loneliness in urban areas is the unsuitability of post-war re-housing, much of it erected on old bomb sites. In the 60s, tower blocks and
large areas of low-rise flats and maisonettes were 'in'; today it is realized that
all this was a gigantic mistake, and many such complexes are being
demolished to make way for old-style housing. The problems connected with
steel and concrete are, first anonymity; also, depressing outlooks, vandalism
and crime. Many elderly people live in fear. They install
impregnable front
doors, which impede the emergency services in the event of physical collapse
or fire.
What of the young? Many are, for different reasons, just as lonely as the
elderly. In Britain, the suicide rate among them is increasing. Despair and
loneliness of the spirit are the fundamental causes. Bullying, unpopularity at
school, anxiety about examination results and job prospects all make for a
feeling of isolation. Some of this may be self-inflicted; the young as well as the
old have character defects. Yet there is a great need for counseling and
reassurance, certainly affection. The feeling of being excluded from society
leads to gang membership and crime, often drug-related.
Finally, the decline of religion has had its effects. If a person of any age has
a faith and a belief in God's love, a fundamental reason for living is imparted,
and this does much to counteract loneliness.
There are no ready-made solutions.
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