'I can no longer hear God'

By Jason Lim

In one of the pivotal scenes in the Netflix movie, "The Two Popes," Pope Benedict XVI cries out, "I can no longer hear God!" to his would-be-successor. "I believe in God! I pray ... but only silence. How can I reveal his word to our millions of pilgrims if I do not hear his presence?"

He then goes on to utter what I believe are the most insightful lines of the whole movie: "I have been alone my whole life, but I have never been lonely, until now. You wished for an extraordinary reason for my resignation ― do you have one now?"

Benedict might have meant that the extraordinary reason for his resignation was that he, as the Vicar of Christ, could no longer personally hear God. But what I took away was that he was lonely.

By the nature of the position and his own personality, he was disconnected from real human relationships, isolated without any community, and surrounded by utter silence, even from his own internal guiding voice he had relied on. In today's lingo, he was being "ghosted" by his world.

This, more than anything else, drove his decision to resign. All the concerns about the evolution of the church, theological discussions, and his own failings as a leader seem like rationalizations for an emotional decision that he has made because he was lonely.

I say emotional not to mean dramatic and impulsive, but to refer to the deeper-than-intellect, underlying fabric in all human beings that determines our sense of wellbeing.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs taught us that we build on our different needs from the bottom up in the order that they affect our physical survival and safety. As we satisfy our basic needs, we turn our attention and resources to the more abstract needs such as social belonging and self-actualization.

However, our brain is not so neatly categorized. David Rock, founder of Neuroleadership, said, "Firstly, that much of our motivation driving social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward (Gordon, 2000). Secondly, that several domains of social experience draw upon the same brain networks to maximize reward and minimize threat as the brain networks used for primary survival needs (Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2008). In other words, social needs are treated in much the same way in the brain as the need for food and water."

Social connection is a fundamental need. One of the most revered and powerful men on earth resigned because this fundamental need wasn't being met. Overlay this with the current state of the elderly in Korea, and you have a tragic and alarming phenomenon. Korea suffers from the highest elderly poverty rate among all OECD countries, approaching 50 percent. Contrast this to Japan's 19.6 percent.

Korea also experiences an astounding 48.8 per 100,000 for 70-somethings and 70 per 100,000 for those in their 80s or older. The national average was 24.3. For a country with one of the longest average lifespans in the world, the golden years certainly don't seem too golden for many.

More often than not, being old and poor also means being isolated and lonely. Among the elderly poor, almost one in two live alone. The number of elderly living by themselves is up nearly 20 percent since 2006. It's not even news any longer when someone dies in Korea in such isolation that he or she isn't found for an extended period.

When I visited Seoul last summer, I ran into a huge, loud crowd outside Seoul Station shouting for some conservative causes, including calls to free the jailed former President Park Geun-hye. Many in the crowd were elderly. In fact, the overwhelming presence of the elderly in conservative protests has been a noticeable phenomenon.

This makes sense, of course, since this was the generation that personally experienced the rags-to-riches story spearheaded by Park's legendary father. The younger, more progressive generations have ridiculed these elderly protesters for their outdated sense of the world, foolish gullibility, religious fervor, blind faith to corrupt conservative politicians, etc.

But what if they are just lonely? What if these protests provide a sense of community and meaning, a welcome distraction from the effort of everyday subsistence leading to the inevitable invisible death?

They have been living, nay dying, in faithless silence, unable to hear their God and find any sort of meaning and community. Not only are the elderly in Korea abandoned, but they are reviled and made to wallow in their isolation until they drown.

The younger generations look upon them as more nuisance and burden to today's society than anything else. Or it may be that the younger generations are angry at their parents, accusing them of monopolizing the great story of the Miracle on the Han River and leaving their children and grandchildren only with pale shadows of the fresh hope and new beginnings that they greedily exhausted.

No matter. As one of the fastest aging societies in the world, poverty and loneliness will be everybody's problem soon enough.

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.