Loneliness

Richard’s Selected Writings on The Human Condition

The esteemed goal within each group is to reach for the leadership. There lies, seemingly, more power, more love, more acceptance and more individuality. [..] Loneliness may seem to diminish by belonging to the group, but it actually does not. Rather, it becomes more and more poignant the higher one climbs.

The cause of loneliness and aloneness is not, as is commonly believed, alienation from others. The single reason for being alone and lonely is from not being me as-I-am. By not being me, but being, instead, an identity, ‘I’ am doomed to perpetual loneliness and aloneness. ‘I’ am fated to ever pursue an elusive Someone or Something that will fill that aching void. When I am me, there is no void. By being me as-I-am, I have no need for others; hence I also have no need to place the burden upon them to fulfil that what was lacking. Not only do I free myself from that perpetual pursuit, but I also free others in my company from the task ‘I’ impose upon them. Being me is actual fulfilment, each moment again. Nevermore will I be needy, greedy and grasping. Nevermore will I plot and plan and manipulate others. Nevermore will I have to prostitute myself to others to assuage those main attributes of the identity: being lost, lonely, frightened and cunning. Not only am I free, but I set all others free of ‘my’ grace-less demands. Being me is to be free-flowing, spontaneous, delightful … and it is fun.

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  • sorrow

    Richard: As a broad generalised categorisation, ‘sorrow’ (the desire to hurt oneself; active grief, suffering or melancholy; a deep sadness) is used here as a ‘catch-all’ word for what one does to oneself (sadness, loneliness, melancholy, grief, masochism and so on through all the variations such as agony; angst; anguish; anxiety; apprehension; bereavement; bleakness; crestfallen; deflated; dejected; depression; desolation; despondency; disappointment; disconcerted; disconsolate; discontented; discouraged; disenchanted; disillusioned; displeased; disquiet; dissatisfied; distress; dismay; downhearted; dreariness; edginess; fear; fed-up; flustered; foreboding; fretfulness; frustrated; gloominess; glum; grief; heartache; horror; lament; melancholic; miserable; misery; morose; mourning; nervousness; panic; perturbed; regret; sad; sadness; sorrow; sorrowfulness; suffering; tenseness; terror; thwarted; torment; trepidation; troubled; uneasiness; upset; woe; worry; wretchedness).

  • Security

    RICHARD: [..] the eternal cry of each group-member, each identity, is: ‘But what about me? You only love me for what I do, for what role I play, for my looks, for my bank-balance … or for whatever attribute that has secured my place. I want to be loved for me, a unique individual!’ Yet this ‘unique individual’ only knows itself as a group-member. It defends itself as being part of the whole. All that area of ‘myself’ which cannot be displayed publicly must be kept secret. ‘My’ deepest feelings, ‘my’ objections, ‘my’ goals, must be suppressed in order not to upset the status-quo of the group … and therefore, ‘my’ precious ‘safety’. Their love for ‘me’, their acceptance, is paramount. ‘I’ must sell-out me as-I-am in order to belong. This is ‘my’ uneasy perversion. ‘I’ would rather carry on being corrupted – and corrupting others – than risk the dreaded loneliness resulting from the loss of love and its implied security through alienation from the group to which ‘I’ belong.

    VINEETO: [..] belonging is about feeling part of a group for emotional support, for security of one’s beliefs and for company in loneliness and misery. I have experienced and examined my beliefs, emotions, instinctual passions, urges, needs and fears around this issue in me and they no longer have any impact on me.

  • Autonomy

    [..] If this fact, that love will not solve your problem of aloneness and loneliness, is allowed to sink in, as an irrefutable fact, love will lose its appeal and you can regain your autonomy and dignity as a person in your own right – and simultaneous recognize your partner’s own autonomy and dignity. It also dispenses with pining and jealousy in one fell swoop.