January

Call me Bobby Orr. I play hockey now.

Jan 31, 2025

Welcome to the new year! Can’t believe I’ve already been back for a month but here we are. I’ll start off with some updates/reflections on happenings, then I have a short essay on something that’s been on my mind for a while, and I’ll end with the usual pictures.

UPDATES

Started out the new year with our annual Mod ski trip. Not much to share, other than my love for skiing. Oh and my friends, I guess.

`Mmmmm look at all that red`

Participated in the annual Creede Pond Hockey Tournament. One of the more absurd things I’ve done. Skated once since high school (when I went maybe three times max). What sport does it make sense for me to participate in? Beer league hockey. Located outside of Creede in a deep canyon (downstream from a ‘superfund’ sight: one of the most polluted mine tailings in America) with beautiful scenery. The Zamboni used to clear the ice was donated by Jason Mamoa, who’s production company shot a Carhartt commercial at the rink. The high temperature for the weekend was 10. The weather was bearable on Saturday thanks to a bonfire we commandeered from a group of four Texans (team name Basura, Spanish for ‘trash’, showing significant athletic self awareness), with which I melted the back calves of my snow pants (not the only one to do this). While I did not manage to score, I did have two assists (puck had to be passed twice for a goal to count), which I felt was a win. Our team, the ‘Chilly Civilians’ went 2-2 on the weekend, including a win over our sister team, the ‘Hot Pecans’. Suck it.

`One of my assists (I’m in red). It’s giving ‘I can’t skate’ core.`

The ‘Rio Frio’ Ice Festival was the last weekend in January, during which I ran the 5K - finished 61st (out of 265) with a time of 28m 16s, which is pretty good for sub-freezing, at-altitude running. So, so happy I never ran in High School: actually pushing yourself sucks, who knew. Light jogs is where it’s at. I’m looking forward to the first week of February, when I’ll be back at Bethel for an MVS recruiting trip. And the Superbowl of course (it’s three-peat season).

And because I’m a nerd that misses college, here’s an essay:

A NEW EPIDEMIC

Our surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has declared an epidemic. It’s one you probably haven’t heard of, but have surely been infected with at some point. It can decrease quality of life, make it harder to complete everyday tasks, and at its worst increase risk of mortality. It’s not COVID-19, opiates, or RSV. It’s loneliness.

According to the Surgeon General’s advisory paper: Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (2023) “Across many measures, Americans appear to be becoming less socially connected over time”. Average time spent alone increased from 285 minutes per day in 2003 to 305 minutes per day in 2019, and continued to increase during 2020. This is especially true for younger people (age 15 - 24), for whom time spent with friends decreased by 70% in the past two decades. While a quarter of people surveyed in 1990 only had 3 or fewer friends, this percentage has increased to half of all Americans in 2021.

These trends are worrying, and this isn’t just important from a ‘feel-good-be-happy’ perspective. It has real impacts on health. “the effects of social connection, isolation, and loneliness on mortality are comparable, and in some cases greater, than those of many other risk factors including lifestyle factors (e.g., smoking), traditional clinical risks factors (e.g., high blood pressure)... and clinical interventions (e.g., flu vaccine)”. From which I now understand that chain smoking in a group setting is not only wildly fun but also neutral to longevity. Thank you Surgeon General.

WHY?

While there are likely a myriad of factors, one I believe to be especially damaging is the rise of the internet, smartphones, and social media. Cal Newport, a knowledge work and tech focused writer I’ve followed for a number of years, has a podcast episode and accompanying blog post on the correlation between the increase in rates of anxiety and depression among young people and the rise of smartphones. “Over the last few years, a rough consensus has emerged that there really are significant harms in giving young people unrestricted access to the internet through smartphones...” (Newport, 2023)

In the evening on a random Tuesday, or even weekend night, you never have to be bored: lizard-man Mark Zuckerberg, Chinese spy app TikTok, and the curvy PlayStation 5 are always beckoning for your attention, calling out like the Sirens from Percy Jackson. And this is so much easier than making new friends (trust me, I’ve tried both). And yet, as joyful as I feel sitting alone on the floor of my room receiving the blessing of 5 big BOOMS from A.J. and Big Justice, it just isn’t the same as sharing those same low-quality posts with an in person friend.

SELF-PITY

Thanksgiving dinner, centered around a beautifully roasted bird and many other delectable little treats, isn’t really about the food. It’s about the people. When everyone’s favorite in-law, in a stroke of divinely inspired conversational genius, stands up and declares ‘Let’s aaaaall go around and say what we’re THANKFUL for!” What do people say? Friends and family of course (and health, damn cigarettes).

With such a social occasion in mind, where did I find myself Thanksgiving of 2023? Walking downhill on brick streets, broken umbrella in hand desperately fighting off the rain like a first-year Hogwarts student standing against Voldemort's Death Eaters. Precipitation which came nearly every day and thematically matched my mood, while doing nothing to raise it. Boots sloshing in the muck. Very much alone. Very much sad. Marching to my least favorite fast food restaurant of all time: Burger King *yehck*. It was the middle of my semester abroad, I was in minimal classes, and living in a single apartment in student housing. While I made a few superficial friends, this semester was marked by a whole lot of time spent alone… dare I say more than 305 minutes per day. I was hopeful that eating greasy American food might cheer me up, but with the rain and the walk, I bailed on my plan and stopped by the closest grocery store to buy some shredded parmesan cheese to top plain spaghetti. The worst part wasn’t the meal, (I consider Parmigiano Reggiano to be one of my 3 close friends) but the next day when I managed to eat lunch for the first time with two of the people I had half-befriended: “Thanksgiving was yesterday for Americans, what did you do to celebrate?” was the obvious question to ask. Nothing. De Nada. Null. I mumbled something about calling my family, and left it at that.

While the semester abroad was special at times, and an experience I don’t regret, it is certainly the college semester I would least want to relive, the one least marked by connection and community. I think this is partly why I’m so interested in this topic. While I was so deeply blessed in high school and college with solid friend groups, no one in our individualistic and post ‘social’ (more like anti-social) media age escapes the inevitability of a lack of connection.

‘dude, like, literally just make friends bro, it’s not even that hard’

Dr. Murthy was a guest on one of my favorite podcasts Hidden Brain (Relationships 2.0: An Antidote to Loneliness, 2020) talking about this epidemic. Amid many sharp insights, one stood out to me: “But perhaps most insidious of all when we struggle with chronic loneliness, it chips away at our self-esteem, and we start to believe that the reason that we're lonely is because we're not likeable or not lovable.”

I can’t imagine how many young people are sitting alone in bed on a Saturday night, mirroring each others posture: shoulders slumped, eyes glazed over, thumb keeping time at 4.3 second intervals, swiping a glowing rectangle to trigger an itty-bitty dopamine hit, the Gen-Z equivalent of a broke boomer worshipping at the altar of a penny slot machine at Crosswinds Casino. So many of these youthful souls think they are the problem. If only I were cooler or funnier or skinnier or thicker or whatever-is-on-trend… then I would finally be worthy of friends.

The reality is that so many of us experience loneliness, and it is in no way reflective of self-worth. Making friends is hard. Making friends post-grad, living alone, in a social media addicted, capitalist-value-system driven world is even harder. Thankfully we have many effective treatments for this malaise: get off social media, call someone, make plans, invite people over for dinner, be intentional about relationships, never say no to an invitation etc. etc. But these things will always be sort of… hard.

Maybe just being aware of the universality of the issue offers a modicum of relief from the shame. As Billy Joel so eloquently crooned back in ‘73: “Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinkin' alone.”

Thanks for reading! I think this blog is turning into more of a ‘short update on my life/year of service then I write about something that interests me’. Hopefully it’s interesting. If not, feel free to unsubscribe, I don’t need to be another piece of sweet, juicy SPAM in your frying pan of a Gmail inbox. Anyway, here’s some pics: