Is Modern Loneliness Inevitable?

Modern Loneliness is a "public health crisis” according to professionals. 

In 2025, new data and debate show a complicated picture: youth loneliness is high, workplaces struggle with disconnection, and the erosion of ‘third places’ narrows everyday chances to belong. Major studies detail real health costs, while others caution that the word ‘epidemic’ oversimplifies. 

What if loneliness is not a bug, but a feature of modern life?

It’s the premise of one of Japan’s most enduring novels, Kokoro, by Natsume Sōseki.

If you’re feeling lonely, reading books can help.  Yet, overcoming loneliness requires cultivating human connection, community, and resetting our relationship with the trappings of modern life, including digital addictions.

In this edition of Ink & Time, you’ll find:

Kokoro is a 1914 Japanese novel by Natsume Sōseki, widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of modern Japanese literature. The title translates to "heart" but encompasses deeper meanings including "soul," "spirit," "feelings," and "the heart of things”. The novel delivers the shocking prognosis:

Here is a translation by Edwin McClellan, 1957 now in the public domain.

You can read the original in Japanese at the Soseki Project

If you’re interested in Japan’s transition to the modern era, check out Lafcadio Hearn’s “Gleanings in Buddha Fields”:

Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) was born at the dawn of the Meiji Restoration, witnessing its dizzying modernization, a transformation from isolated feudal society to an industrial power that defeated Russia in the war of 1899.

Unlike many who celebrated rapid progress, Sōseki harbored deep misgivings about modernity.

Trained as an English literature scholar, he spent two years in London on a government scholarship, an experience that left him disillusioned with Western "civilization." He returned to Japan only to find his home country racing toward the same spiritual emptiness he detected abroad.

Turning to fiction after a nervous breakdown, Sōseki was Japan's first novelist to vividly portray "the plight of the alienated modern Japanese intellectual." His protagonists were often educated men caught between traditional values and Western individualism, struggling to maintain authentic human connections.

Kokoro, serialized in 1914, was Sōseki's late-career masterpiece.

Set during Japan's transition from the Meiji era (1868-1912) to the Taishō era (1912-1926), Kokoro captures a pivotal moment in Japanese history when the nation rapidly modernized and Westernized.

Sōseki himself argued that Japan was "shocked into change".

The death of Emperor Meiji in 1912 and the subsequent ritual suicide (junshi) of General Nogi serve as crucial historical backdrops and symbolize the passing of traditional loyalties and moral codes.

Kokoro consists of three distinct parts:

The novel's innovation lay in its unflinching psychological depth. It’s structure creates a deliberate crescendo with minimal action, building tension through psychological revelation rather than external events. The first two parts function as a memoir narrated by the student, while the third part comprises entirely of Sensei's suicide letter.

Sensei: The novel's central figure is a wealthy, middle-aged man living in Tokyo with his wife Shizu. Deeply introspective and marked by profound guilt, Sensei lives in self-imposed isolation, harboring a secret about his involvement in his friend K's suicide years earlier.

The Narrator (Watashi): An unnamed university student who becomes fascinated with Sensei during a chance encounter at a beach in Kamakura. The narrator represents Japan's younger generation, caught between respect for traditional authority figures and the pull of modern independence.

K: Sensei's former best friend and roommate, an idealistic and ascetic student who commits suicide after discovering Sensei's romantic betrayal. K's character represents the danger of rigid idealism in a changing world and the tragic consequences of poor communication.

Shizu (Ojosan): Sensei's wife, described as gentle, loyal, and innocent. She remains unaware of her husband's secret guilt throughout their marriage, representing the collateral damage of suppressed truths.

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, famed author of Rashōmon, openly revered Sōseki; a letter of praise from Sōseki in 1916 jump-started his literary fame. Even mid-century authors like Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburō Ōe drew on themes Sōseki pioneered, the clash between tradition and modernity, the crisis of identity.

Internationally acclaimed novelist Haruki Murakami cited Sōseki as his favorite Japanese writer.

His legacy also appears in philosophy classrooms as a case study in modern ethics. In pop culture, the story has been repeatedly adapted for film and television, and even reimagined in anime series. His lecture "My Individualism" (1914), anticipated the loneliness and identity crises of our hyper-modern age.

For decades, Sōseki's face graced the ¥1,000 banknote (1984-2007) as testament to his stellar cultural impact.

Sensei bluntly pinpoints a paradox that has intensified in the past 100 years: the very freedoms modern life gives us (to pursue our own path) lead to profound isolation.

When the book was written, Japan was new to urban anonymity and Western individualism. Today, social scientists have confirmed that societies focused on individual autonomy report higher rates of loneliness than community-oriented cultures.

You might assume an elderly widower is the loneliest, not a student with a full life ahead. Yet Sensei perceives that young people, severed from traditional support structures but not yet settled in adult identity, face uniquely severe isolation.

Sōseki foresaw that modernization would fragment society by age cohort, creating knowledge and value systems that barely overlap.

Modernity versus Tradition. The novel depicts how traditional values emphasizing honor, loyalty, and collective relationships clashed with new Western ideals of individualism and self-assertion. Sensei and K represent different responses to this cultural tension, both ultimately failing to successfully navigate the transition.

Freedom, Connection & the Authenticity Paradox. Meiji Japan's rush to individualism left characters like Sensei feeling cut off. People thought they wanted anonymity, but for many it turned into a curse.

Such moral isolation relates to social media's "authenticity-visibility paradox". Sensei's inability to confess his secret creates a living death, forcing authentic relationships to remain superficial. Social media encourages visibility while undermining genuine connection.

Users become more visible by presenting less authentic versions of themselves.

Institutional Breakdown. Modernization erodes traditional social scaffolding: extended families, religious communities, stable employment relationships.

The novel predicts contemporary trends like declining religious participation (only 36% of Gen Z identifies as religious compared to 84% of the Silent Generation) and the gig economy's elimination of traditional workplace social opportunities.

Trust in an Uncertain World. Having been betrayed, Sensei concludes that "one must always be on guard." His manipulation of K shows how modern self-interest overrides traditional loyalty, with tragic consequences. The novel questions whether Sensei's actions constitute genuine betrayal or merely the inevitable result of unexpressed desires.

Death and Suicide. Suicide functions as both literal plot device and symbolic representation of moral crisis. Both K and Sensei choose death when unable to reconcile their ideals with reality. The novel explores whether their deaths represent honorable junshi (following one's master to death) or dishonorable escape from moral responsibility.

Meaning & Mentorship in a Material World. The narrator's attraction to Sensei reflects the younger generation's desperate search for guidance in a world where traditional authority structures have eroded. But can such mentorship relationships be possible when mentors themselves are wounded by historical trauma? 

What happens when loneliness perpetuates across generations, with isolated parents unable to model healthy social connection for their children?

Kokoro also asks difficult question of how to find meaning when old spiritual certainties fade. Sensei cannot lean on feudal codes nor fully embrace new consumer pleasures. He's become spiritually adrift.

In the West, Nietzsche declared "God is dead." People were struggling to find purpose in a secular, commercial age.

Indeed, one could say now that shopping has become a surrogate spiritual pursuit, in the absence of formal religion for many.

Kokoro remains a masterpiece that illuminates the psychological complexities of cultural transition.

Damaged individuals struggle with guilt, isolation, and moral uncertainty.

The novel thus offers profound insights into Meiji-era Japan and the universal human experience of navigating change, loss, and the search for meaning.

Loneliness is an inevitable consequence of modernity's core tensions between individual freedom and communal belonging. Sōseki’s tragic conclusion: Some individuals will not survive modernity's psychological demands.

The most resonant insight: No one is truly alone in feeling alone.

Over a hundred years later, now in an age of limitless “connections",” we're still grappling with how to live as free individuals without suffering crippling isolation.

Feeling lonely? Read books, it helps. This is the purpose of Ink & Time, which brings you classics of literature, and powerful ideas that we have forgotten or overlooked.