The Sin of Loneliness

During my interview on Pints of Aquinas with Matt Fradd we discussed the plague of male loneliness that is hollowing out the men of America and globally.

Consider that:

In 1990, 55% of men said that they had six or more close friends.
Today, 15% of men say that they have zero close friends.
80% of men won’t approach a woman for fear of appearing creepy or being rejected.
80% of suicides are men.
20% of men under the age of thirty live at home with their parents.
50% of single men are not trying to date and aren’t interested in pursuing a relationship.

In that interview, Matt asked what toxic loneliness is.
To which I responded something like this: when someone lacks friendship, and the result is that they become fearful of attempting to have relationships.
That fear breeds a deep-seated insecurity and inferiority, which further enhances the fear of engaging people.
Eventually, the cyclical dynamic of fear fostering insecurity, and insecurity breeding further fear, imprisons a person in perpetual isolation.

My wife mentioned that several people posted in the video’s comment box something like, “But what about the desert fathers?
They lived in isolation.
What about monks?”

Their comments demonstrate that people struggle in making the distinction between isolation and loneliness.

Isolation is separation, segregation, quarantine.
It is one of the most intense punishments a prisoner will endure.
Lepers were isolated.

Solitude is being alone—temporarily.
But when a person is “being alone” they are actually not alone—they are alone with God.
Monks live in solitude.

Monks are not isolated.
They live in community.
They work together, pray together, fast together and feast together.
And they purposefully and intentionally enter into solitude with God.

Heaven is eternal self-giving and union with God and His saints.
Heaven is solitude and communion.
It is the eternal “expanse”.

Hell is loneliness, self-loathing and bitter regret.
In Hell, one’s companions are the demons that inflict endless torture, and the frightful blasphemies of those condemned to its confines.
Hell is eternal isolation.
It is the infinite prison.

Toxic male loneliness is the foreshadowing of Hell.

God created us with the intention of living in relationships.
As God said, “It is not good that man be alone.” (Genesis 2:18).

The word alone in the Hebrew is abadad, which literally means “bad.”
In the creation account, the only time God referred to anything being inherently bad is when referring to man being alone—isolated.

This is important.
If God says something is bad—then it is undeniably, unequivocally bad.

The longest consecutive study on human development (beginning in 1938), followed the lives of 738 men from two subsets: Harvard sophomore males and inner-city boys from the poorest Boston slums.
The aim of the study was to find what makes men happy, live longer, have better cognitive function, better health and the like.
The study has continued to this day, following the lives of these men’s marriages, their wives, their careers, children, and grandchildren,

Robert J. Waldinger, the fourth facilitator of this study, relates that the study discovered conclusively that there is a single factor that if you have when you are in your 50’s, you will most likely live into your 80’s.

If you have this one thing, you are more likely to avoid having dementia or Alzheimer’s.
If you have this one thing, you will be happier than most people.

What is it?

One solid relationship.
Just one.

It could be with a bickering spouse—but a spouse that is dependable.
It could be a great friend with whom you meet weekly for coffee.

Notice that it is not money that offers these benefits.
Notice that is not achievement that offer these benefits.
Notice that it is not fame that offers these benefits.

It is a solid relationship that affords better health, cognitive function, overall happiness.

In fact, the Harvard study demonstrated that quite often the men who had achievement, wealth, positions of notoriety but still lacked that one solid dependable, loving relationship suffered from health problems, depression, anxiety and even suicidality. (Ted Talk here)

What took Harvard nearly one hundred years to discover is the timeless wisdom that the Catholic Church has proclaimed for the last two millennia.
God is eternal relationship.
Three persons who are one in self-giving love.
They are in the other and for the other and One God.

We are created by Eternal Relationship.
We come from Eternal Relationship.
We will return to Eternal Relationship…
By means of human relationships.
We will be saved or damned based on how we live or don’t live in relationships.

Relationships are the very means to purify us of our selfishness and to learn to live selflessly for others.

The ultimate goal for your family is to experience heaven on earth today that they may experience heaven in the eternal day.
You, as father and leader of your family, by your self-donation, carve the path through the thicket and thorns of this world to heaven. This is precisely why the enemy’s intention is to isolate you in the “sin of loneliness”.

Isolation is hell.
Isolation is the polar opposite of communion, union, and self-giving love.
It is easier to avoid communion with others, live in isolation, and suffer loneliness, rather than to suffer to overcome loneliness and isolation for the purpose of living in communion with others.

Jesus, speaking of this dynamic, said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains alone” (Jn 12:24).

In other words, if you don’t give yourself away, you will, in the end, die a lonely, isolated unloving and unlovable man.

To the degree that you give love is the level that you will be given love.

Notice that the cost of communion is death to your selfish self.
One of the most persistent, relentless, perpetual sufferings that you will experience is the battle to overcome the temptation to remain alone with your hobbies, projects, work, and vain ambitions, rather than surrender your vain ambitions for the purpose of intentionally participating in your wife’s and children’s lives.

Karol Wojtyla, in his play The Radiation of Fatherhood, speaking of Adam said, “He stepped once on the frontier between fatherhood and loneliness.”

Which raises the question: What is this frontier between fatherhood, communion, and loneliness?
Later Wojtyla wrote: “Loneliness opposes love. On the borderline of loneliness, love must become suffering.”
And if suffering is to be redeemed, it must become sacrifice.

If you desire to magnetically attract your family to yourself and ultimately to God, it is imperative that you move from the world of isolation and loneliness, across the threshold and frontier of suffering, intentionally offering those sufferings as a sacrifice in union with Christ to God, for the purpose of entering the world of fatherhood—a world of harmony, communion, and familial love.

Those men who choose to be selfish, who choose not to sacrifice for their family by being present to them, will, in the end, be alone.

But if you transform your sufferings into a sacrifice unto God, you will be surrounded by love.

Your fatherhood is the antidote to loneliness.

Indeed, “[u]nless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24). Indeed, this is how a father unites his family—in dying to himself, his family bears the fruit of communion.

It was St. Joseph who burst free from the world of isolation and loneliness, courageously stepped out on the frontier of fatherly suffering, transformed his sufferings into a sacrifice to God the Father for God His Son, and by doing so, his fatherhood bore the greatest fruit—Jesus the Savior of the world.

And so, it will be with you.
By overcoming the sin of loneliness and offering yourself to your family, your fatherhood will bear great fruit—fruit that will endure.