According to the Existentialist, a human being's existence is a lonely
existence. At the end of the day, we are all alone. Can anyone ever
truly understand what it is to be you, to experience all the things you have
experienced, to understand your joys and happiness, your pains and
sorrows? Surely we can talk to other people about how we feel, we can draw
pictures, we can play music, but all this attempt to communicate ultimately
leaves something behind. We cannot always get our feelings, ideas
or experiences across exactly. There is a painful reality that ultimately we are
alone, by ourselves, and ultimately lonely.
Some people are better at alleviating their loneliness than other people, at
hiding their monadic existence than others. For them, loneliness is a
fleeting feeling that visits them on cold winter days or cold gloomy rainy days
when human contact becomes minimal and they are left only with the thoughts in
their heads. For others, loneliness is a curse, a shadow that follows them
all the time, that rears its ugly head at every human contact, that surrounds
them in their waking and in their dreams.
Whether we would like to agree with it or not, loneliness is a universal phenomenon,
it visits every human soul at some time in every culture, every race, every
class, every age, and at all times in human history. It is inescapable, and has
been expressed throughout the ages in music, literature and art. To
feel lonely is to join the rest of humanity in acknowledging that we are somehow
fundamentally separated from each other, doomed to speak and yet never fully
understood. Not only is loneliness so pervasive, but it has been
associated with a variety of different emotions. People who feel lonely
describe it as painful, and it is associated very strongly with feelings of
depression, suicide, low self-esteem and aggression. Being lonely for too
long may not be a good thing. And while we suffer a monadic existence, we
are social animals, needing each other, to bond, to connect, to love. It
is the paradox of human existence to seek to fill a need that can never be
satisfied, to fill the vortex of loneliness in our lives.
So what is loneliness? Is it a feeling? A condition? For different
people, it means different things. It is hard to describe exactly what it
is, or how come we feel this way. Perhaps a better question is "what
is loneliness for you?" I invite you to read in the pages ahead about
loneliness, its varied forms, its varied causes and the various ways that people
cope with loneliness.
