The modern misery

The UK has appointed the world’s first ‘Minister for Loneliness’ this year. British prime minister Theresa May, when announcing the position, said ‘‘For far too many people, loneliness is the sad reality of modern life.’’

Apparently, she goes on to say, we’re off the hook now for not being organised enough, or popular enough, that modern life is making it an increasingly uphill battle to fight isolation – and it is taking its toll so severely on our health and our health systems, that it has become its own epidemic.

There’s been a lot in the news about New Zealand having the highest rate of teen suicide, increasing decade after decade, and a lot of discussion over the last week or so around Anthony Bourdain’s death.

Suicide is a sort of canary in the coal mine for our society isn’t it?

A sign that something is very wrong in the way our culture is moving.

And while the experts point to factors like child poverty and domestic violence, unemployment and lack of service provisions, these are also problems in third world countries, even in comparable areas like Europe – all where suicide rates are significantly lower.

Surely there’s something more happening here? Nobel prize winner and Princeton Professors, Deaton and Case argue that these ‘‘deaths of despair’’ (and they include addiction as part of this) are because of the disintegration of the ‘‘spiritual and social fabric’’ of our cultures – that people kill themselves when they aren’t connected to their families, their neighbours and communities, when they lack a sense of who they are and why they are here.

They point to comparatively very low suicide rates in the African-American community, which is much more well socially-connected than its Caucasian counterpart.

In NZ, similar to the US in a number of ways, self-reliance is king: we are working longer and longer hours, socialising less and less, moving cities more regularly to follow better jobs, regardless of impact on relationships, and spending more and more time on our phones and in front of Netflix.

And ironically most of us don’t work because we love what we do.

We work to pay our mortgages (see www.mrmoneymustache.com if you’re over that!), because that’s what everyone does, we work to achieve ‘success’, even if it’s not necessarily that fulfilling.

I spent years studying and practising law for these reasons, only to find myself miserable and struggling with mental health.

Only now, as I’ve taken risks (and financial hits!) to follow what I love to do in creating beautiful images as a photographer – have I found real joy in my working life.

I watch my kids, four and six, happiest just mucking around creating – building Lego, making up invisible worlds of play, mixing concoctions in the kitchen, drawing.

We think it’s a bit sad that this is something to be left behind as we grow up, but maybe it’s more than sad, maybe it’s actually tragic, its toll more sinister than we realise – that we’ve become this society so consumed with things that are making us miserable.

Christianity presents this worldview (regardless of whether the Church has done a good job at embracing this – which, let’s be honest, we haven’t done) that humans are created in the image of a divinity that at its essence is a loving, relational, creative force.

Relational above all else – community and connection is the whole point – he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

And it’s a divinity that at its core is creative, that set into motion a world where we have walruses and grand canyons and mandarins.

Genesis 1 is this story of a God who loves to create, who delights in the act of making and imagining, and bringing into being, and then also actively loves what he creates.

And the Christian worldview says that we humans are created in the image of this Godhead, that we are created to also connect and create. And, I would argue, not happy unless we are. That this is what makes us uniquely human, and that this is what it is to live well and joyfully. So how are you doing?

Maybe it’s time to connect with some old friends, or invite someone new around for dinner?

Or time to work a few less hours and pick up an old hobby or try a new one, for no other reason than it brings you joy – and that may be the whole point.

Maybe it’s time to connect with some old friends, or invite someone new around for dinner?