RE: Some Reflections about Loneliness and Bad Companies
This post is incredibly timely and resonates with how I have come to feel about loneliness. I discovered in 2017 that I adore living alone, as it was the first time I lived in an apartment with no roommate. Recently, I have attained that situation again, a couple of months ago. It makes a massive difference for my overall wellbeing. I am curious what it would feel like to live in a country locale with no neighbors, for in an apartment, you are still surrounded by people. I hope to own a small farm someday.
Living alone, even as an introspective individual, there are moments of intense loneliness in which one comprehends why the common response is to desperately seek any company whatsoever, no matter how incompatible with our current state of being.
However, that impulse being rejected, eventually comes the realization of the beauty of loneliness you have so well expounded in this article. We have the presence of mind to lovingly consider all the people we have interacted with throughout our lives, affirm how we adore and cherish them, without the compulsion to act out. Instead it is a powerful inner knowingness of the value of people and we wish them very well.
Moreover, it makes small contacts, such as replying to this blog, extremely enjoyable. We are not swamped with the psychic energies of others to the point of overwhelm and can give 100% of our attention to the interaction of the moment.
Also, as you mentioned, it's so important we gain perspective and realize nothing in life is interminable. Solitude gives us that space to cultivate ourselves and contextualize the meaning of potential future relationships to our lives. As a young man, I realize it is entirely possible I will have a mate and children someday. Will I work on myself enough now to be able to handle such an arrangement, should it manifest? Thus, there is an urgency and potency to aloneness that facilitates inner growth.
My only regret is that I cannot support this post since it is past the 7 day window for upvoting. So, consider my upvotes on your more recent posts a compensation for that :-)
Good to see you,
Dan
Your comment alone is enough reward, my friend. I truly appreciate it.
My mother's family lived in a hilly area where the closest neighbor was about a mile ago. I remember visiting those places as a kid and finding the prospects of such way of life both scary and fascinating.
They practiced Frost's idea of good fences good neighbors. That isolation, though, never made them less hospitable. They were the most generous people i knew.
I, too, dream of living a rather pastoral life.