Trying to understand the human condition of loneliness.
Whether in a room full of people, or sitting alone on a park bench, one can still experience a feeling of separateness from everything else, a seemingly broken connection.
I think that, in a way, it’s quite egocentric, to cut yourself off with the premise that your difference, and uniqueness makes it so you are unable to connect with anything around you. But the yen for understanding, relating, connecting – it is very real, and at the same time, it is also quite illusory. While we are dreaming of another place that involves something or someone else, are we acknowledging all that is in front of us – all that surrounds us? The people, the plants, the sunlight. In those moments, are we not the ones that have momentarily ‘left’ ourselves?
Our mindset shifts from reality to fantasy. We’re busy thinking about this other thing or other person that will make us feel complete, feel fulfilled. We’re busy missing. Missing things outside of us, missing parts within.
If we place the metaphorical ‘space to be filled’ outside of us, of course we won’t feel complete within. But when we move the space to within, we have the power to fill it with whatever we wish, and all else becomes an addition – we then allow ourselves the opportunity to be augmented by the things outside of us, instead of expecting externalities to fit into the internal fragments. We are responsible for filling and healing our spaces, because it is a big (and almost impossible) responsibility to put onto someone else. The people in your life may assist you in doing so, either by suggestion, or leading by example – but no one else can do it for you.
Still, this feeling may persist, and some may even find a sense of comfort in it, and that’s okay, too. Sometimes it’s important for us to fully explore the feeling, and give ourselves a chance to discover what it is that we are truly seeking. So take time to feel it, but don’t dwell in it.
Looking out into the world, into the perceived separateness, I find comfort in the thought that even while immersed within my feelings of loneliness – I am not alone, because many are feeling the same loneliness that I am, and therefore, we are alone, together.
So remember to come back to yourself, to your breath, to your beating heart, to the present. You are all you have in this moment, and every moment.
And in every moment, you are complete.
