Megan writes a little bit about being single, and I want to expand on that and talk about being alone.
For most people, it isn't easy being alone. I'm not talking about being in a romantic relationship or having plenty of friends and family, I'm talking about being able to be content without anyone else around to entertain you.
Being alone can often cause depression, and the typical, modern source of comfort for both aloneness and depression is television. TV may distract you from the fact that you're alone, but it doesn't actually relieve the depression. Reading books and surfing the web fit into a similar category, in my opinion, and are neither substitutes for actual human interaction, nor healthy coping strategies for feelings of loneliness. All three of these -- TV, books, the internet -- relieve aloneness by providing a false sense of presence. None of them is bad, but using any of them as an emotional crutch can cause you to miss out on one of the greatest, most empowering feelings imaginable: being totally alone, and perfectly content.
Being able to be comfortable while alone is one of the most difficult abilities to acquire in life, and many people never achieve it, or even think about it. Most people are constantly seeking affirmation, approval, attention, compassion, empathy, and community with others -- these can all be positive and enjoyable, but addiction to other people is a weakness and a vulnerability.
If you ever watch children interacting with each other, it's easy to notice how dependent they are on the opinions of their peers. Adults are no different; perhaps a bit more subtle, but a keen observer will see the same desires at work: needs for power, affection, and attention. For kids it may be toys, for adolescents it may be clothes, and for adults it may be jobs, cars, houses, or fame. People who derive their self-worth from the opinions of others are easy to manipulate, rarely satisfied no matter what their circumstances, and ill-at-ease when they're alone.
So how does one become comfortable with just oneself? It's not easy. For me, I'm never really alone because I always have God with me. Is my belief in God merely another emotional crutch, akin to television and the like? Some would certainly make that argument. However, it's largely pointless for me to discuss, since if my beliefs are correct then there isn't any way for me to escape God even if I wanted to. If my beliefs are wrong, then deluding myself as a way of coping with aloneness is the least of my problems. And anyway, I know plenty of Christians who can't stand to be alone, despite their belief that God is with them.
So if television, books, and the internet are mere distractions, what is a worthy occupation for alone-time? I think that constructive activities are the most beneficial, and the typical "get a hobby" advice is quite appropriate. I spend some of my alone-time working on my PhD dissertation (not enough), as well as other forms of writing (some of which gets published here). I also like to go for walks and runs around the neighborhood, and I like to lift weights. Physical activity is good for mental health, and there's no better drug than endorphins!
It's not easy to be happy and alone, but I think the effort is well-worth it (insofar as I can claim to be successful at it). For instance, there's no need to fear public speaking if you're indifferent to your audience's response! In a sense, what I'm advocating is a form of apathy, but not entirely. I often act in ways I hope will please the people around me, but I do so because I want to, not because I feel any need for their approval. My apathy frees me to act however I want to act; sometimes people like it, sometimes they don't. It's an honest, fearless way to live.
It might seem that attaining such apathetic freedom could lead to selfishness and arrogance, because the social mores that bind most people won't apply to you anymore. That appearance is deceiving. Apathy doesn't create selfishness and arrogance, it only reveals the selfishness and arrogance that were already there, hidden by social pressure. In truth, gaining the ability to be comfortable while alone will allow you to discover genuine compassion, understanding, and fellowship, by eliminating the false pretenses that dominate most peoples' lives.
After a summer of unintentional isolation (two words: Internet addiction), I've found human contact bewildering and slightly unreal. It didn't help that the contact was uniformly superficial ("Hi, I'm M from T, and I plan to major in B.) On the other hand, I miss being able to follow 50 blogs daily--and I miss living vicariously through Michele Catalano, Rob Smith, and other bloggers. Ultimately, blogs were not just an emotional crutch, but actually a source of meaningful contact. I felt lonelier at the various college dances than alone at my computer.
I agree, it can be difficult to meet people you can connect with in random public settings.
But at the same time, I think it would be ideal to be free from the need for social contact, and to be content being alone. I don't think that's easy to do, and I'm not perfect at it, but I do think it's a worthy goal.
Then again, maybe this is all just a rationalization of my own unmet social needs.
One of the critical manifestations of love is in our engagements with others, not just relationships but all sorts of contacts, both those we enjoy intrinsically and those that inconvenience us. I've never known a well-rounded person with a deep and compelling character who had isolated himself from social living.
But the point isn't to isolate yourself, but to be able to isolate yourself.
Speaking of isolation, where've you been, Mark?
Trying to avoid human contact! No, not really, just overwhelmed with grad work, literary work, book clubs, martinis, etc.
There may be news in the near future.
Feelings of loneliness are normal and are part of the human condition. We could easily argue that god, religion, TV, internet, etc... all serve as coping skills to prevent feeling alone. Maybe what we should aspire to is a feeling of tolerance rather than acceptance. After all, all human emotion serves as a tell-tale for a need unmet. If indeed no "bad" emotion exists and god created us equipt with all these emotions then maybe we are better to take heed to our feelings. Is it possible that all emotions serve to guide us?
Dawn: I think emotions can be incredibly deceptive. It wouldn't be wise to use our emotions as a guide for much of anything.
Emotions can indeed be deceptive. I work in a field in which clientele often fall on two ends of a spectrum. Either they rationalize away their emotions or they feel to much to be rational. Either way, making decisions based on either extreme would never be good.
Have you ever done research into the defense mechanisms/profiles of those persuing higher education Michael?
Dawn: One of my minor fields for my PhD is psychology, so yes.
Emotions are valuable in that they can tell us about our present state, but only when we get beneath the surface. They're far too fickle and unpredictable to be used for decision-making, however.
I really need to know why I ALWAYS want to be alone. I would rather stay in my room with my door closed, listening to my radio than going to the store... WHY? I feel relaxed at the moment while I am doing itbut later on I just feel totally depressed. Sometimes I want someone to talk to me but when someone does I want them to go away. Could someone give me some advice?
I am so glad that this site came up during my search.My girlfriend broke up with me 45 minutes until the ball dropped on new years eve. And ever since i have written her letters and called and stopped by her house wanting to regain a footing in the life we once had. we were together for two years and we had a really rocky relationship, mostly prompted by inability to give or receive love. It all started with my first real girlfriend in college and with the couple of serious relationships since. I dont know how to be alone. I cant be by myself with out callign someone or wanting someone to come around. I also have a problem with knowing who i really am. I thought i knew but everytime i start to get a grasp on myself i get a new girlfriend and then i crumble again and i change for them, no matter what that means. I change for whoever i am around, whehter that be getting loud and obnocious or being quiet. I am just wondering what can i do to gain some ground in finding out who i am and how to be alone. I always want a girlfriend and when i get one i push them away and when they leave then i want them back. I know this has been a long and drawn out explanation but i was hoping that i could get feedback and constructive criticism on how to be a better man and how to help with my relationships. both friendships and intimate relationships. I am 24 and i dont wnat to end up alone like my father is but at the current pace i am heading there without delay. Please help. Anyone's advice would be crucial. My email is dst_rnr_7@hotmail.com if anyone has any advice. thanks so much and this website has been quite intriguing, please keep up the good work as i will continue to read it.
Dell: From what it sounds like, your behavior isn't that unusual. Knowing only a little about your specific situation, it sounds like you need to stop basing your feelings of self-worth on what other people think about you.
Many people get into relationships thinking that the other person is going to somehow meet all their needs, but that's impossible. No one else can meet all your needs, and you can't meet all the needs of anyone else. Our relationships with people are important, but only a personal relationship with God will provide a solid foundation for the rest of our relationships.
We all do stuff to push God away, too, but he loves us anyway. That's why Jesus died, to restore the relationships between us humans and God. We can't do it ourselves, so God did it for us. He loves us just the way we are, but he doesn't want to leave us where we are, he wants to grow into godly men and women.
(5/3/04)
Hey Micheal,
Thanx for your correspondance. On the suggestion of a friend i have started writing a journal. This journal has quickly boasted to about 30 pages( in 4 days ) I have been off from work because i hurt my back at work. So for the last couple of weeks i do nothing but watch soaps..yes...unfortuantely anything that will take me from the reality of my back and my heart hurting. The things in my journal consist of poems and letters that i would have otherwise mailed to her. I have tried to convince her many of tiimes that we should be together and tell her much i care and she says she doesnt know. Or she will say that she wants to be alone and without anyone. So i get enough self fortitude to leave her alone and not call her and then about one or two weeks will go by and she will call me and ask me why i havent called her. Like i was a party favor, that everytime i called she had all of her friends around like...here is again...and he still loves me and wants to me...like i am a lost pupppy. But i am, if she told me that she wanted me to wait four months and then she would be with me i would wait those four months asnd then she would tell me four more and like a good boy i would. I have prayed continously that God allow me to get over her and not need her anymore but as soon as i think i am going to make it, she calls. Like today.SHe called me today and asked if we could hang out. I tried to play it off like well give me a call, but we both know that i was happy as abug in a rug and couldnt have been happier and when she calls me you know that i w3ill say yes, and she will be here. She will come over and i will go into my regular routine of talking about us and she will say that is the reason that she doesnt come over because she is tired of talking about us. She doesnt want to be iwth me but she cares about me and wants to be friends and then she will leave. So what do i do? I know that my brother and everyone else told me not to see her. BUt everytime it seems like she has some control over me and i crumble underneath her tyrannical feet. THis is what will happen...tonight she will cme over and ill try and play it cool and then she will ask me why i am quiet and i will try and hide the fact that my ehart will jump out of my skin at anymoment and then she will be like whatever and then she will leave. And thats when my trouble will begin. Because i will think that we have somehting sparking again and then she wont call me again for abotu a week or so probaly two and then i will be back in the dumps again. Help?
It was very interesting what you said in your letter. What do you mean that i base my feelings around other people? I do know that i try and bend to accomodate the person that i am with but isnt that just compromise? this is what you wrote in your letter...
"Many people get into relationships thinking that the other person is
going to somehow meet all their needs, but that's impossible. No
one else can meet all your needs, and you can't meet all the needs
of anyone else. "
Could you explain that a little bit better?
" Our relationships with people are important, but
only a personal relationship with God will provide a solid
foundation for the rest of our relationships."
I agree with you whole heartedly in this statement. My father is a pastor and i have grown up in the church most of my life. BUt even i have doubts and i think that God doesnt listen to me because in my life i have been through soem rough, rough stuff. I really admire and apppreciate your input on my situation. I thank you for your comments and look forward to hearing back from you soon. Dell
(5/5/04)
Dell again...I spent the evening with karen on 5/3/04 and the evening went well. She came over and helped me around the house. We talked for a bit and she said she loved me and then she kissed me a couple of times. I am wondering why all of a sudden she is being like this with me? She has called me every day since then and we have talked. But i am wondering why my spirits have been lifted since she has come around again? It seems when she is around it makes me happpy and i dont think of all hte negative things in my life. I have been praying every night and i have asked God to let us be togehter again. Then i talked to a friend and they said i should ask God to let his will be done instead of always asking for what i want, is this true? When i think of what she said the other night and about her spending time with me it makes me not think i am lonely is that a good thing or not? THe thing that i am worried about most is if she leaves will i once again feel lonely and want her back? It seems that when she is around i want her...and then when she broke up with me i wanted her even more. Is this because i really miss her or because i cant and dont want to be alone? I think of her alot and my journal is filling up quicker than i ever thought imaginable. What do you do in your spare time? How to you feel complete na then involve yourself in a relationship? Is it wrong for me to try again with her until i know i am ok first? How can my moves change from day to day depending on how she treats me or how i respond to her? Please help! THanx
Dell: It sounds like Karen is confused as well, and just using you. It seems like she knows what she wants, and she knows it isn't you, but you're handy so she uses you when she feels lonely or bored.
I think your brother is probably right in saying that you should avoid her altogether. Unless, of course, you want to maintain your current state.
You have to come to grips with the fact that you're an addict. You're addicted to this girl, and to the idea of a relationship and "love". It hurts to quit, you go through withdrawl, and it sucks. But then once you're past it (and it'll take a while), you'll look back and realize how bad a position you were in (and are in right now).
Once you fully accept your addiction, you will start to see that the ways you act and think really fit the model. You'll realize that you're obeying an irrational addiction, and that you don't really need this girl. You'll realize that the truth is that acting the way you're acting is disgusting and pathetic, and not really love at all. That's the hard truth. You aren't noble or sacrificial or "compromising" when you act as you have been, you're weak and sad.
I've been in a similar position. It's easy to think that you're taking some "high road" and acting loving and noble, but that's your addiction talking. This relationship isn't good for you, and you have to cut it off. As long as you harbor some hope of it possibly maybe working out in the future, you're doomed. Cut it off, reject it entirely.
As I said, no person will ever be able to meet all your needs. People will always disappoint us. People are flawed. No human relationship will fulfill our real needs for intimacy. Only God can do that. He uses people to help in a lot of cases, but the real comfort and security must come from our reliance and dependence on God's love. If you base your self-worth on what others think, you're going to be miserable. Same as if you base your self-worth on what you yourself think.
God does listen and does hear you, but that doesn't mean he'll wave a magic wand and solve all your problems. He's working on you, making you into a tool he can use, and sometimes it hurts. Don't ask God to lighten your load, ask him for the strength to carry it. Ask God to use this experience and make you into the man he wants you to be. He will.
You are probaly right. She stood me up today and hasnt answered my phone calls. I called twice, she said that she was going to go tanning and then she was going to meet me. I guess i have you to thank for being completely honest with me and i guess there is nothing else for me to say other than i dont deserve anyones love and obviously i aint getting it. Thank you for helping me learn this valuable lesson. I will strive to be alone as much as possible and hope that in my state of lonliness that something will come along and maybe ill be ready for it. But as my life is going i lost my girlfriend, parents dont give a hoot and i hurt my back at work and now i am at home with no hope for the future. thank you for your understanding and candor. I will hopefully never be love that way i dont have to feel the pain and dissapointment that i feel now. Thanks for all your help.and hopefully you will be able to help someone else who still has some hope left. My sense of well being,hope for the future are as broken as my heart is and i am sure it will never mend. Goodbye and God Bless you...you are a very nice person and i wish only the absoulute best for you in the future. Good Bye
Dell: Um, I think you may have taken what I said the wrong way. I didn't say no one would ever love you, or that you didn't deserve to be loved, and so forth.
The whole point of my comments is that you don't need this girl in order to feel hope. Your heart may never mend if you're depending on her to mend it, which is why you shouldn't be. You should be depending on God.
I don't think that i took it the wrong way. I simply don't get it. I tried for months on end to try and show her i was different, stopped calling her and trying to spend time with her. When she called me and she needed rides i gave her one. When she was sick after the bar i took care of her. When she was lonely i let her stay here at my house. I thought i was doing the right thing but obviously doing what she wanted didnt suit her purposes. I called her again last night aroun 230 cause i couldnt sleep and she answered the phone. I asked her why she had been spending time with me telling me that hse loved me and what not. Why she kissed me and helped me out.She replied that she cared for me and that she will always love me. She said she did it cause she wanted to. She said i dont know what you expect of me dell, i am happy being single and if you are expecting me to say lets be together again its not going to happen. she said that she liked being around me and i have been a first for alot of things in her life and she doesnt want to act like we didnt happen. She told me that it was my fault and she said she didnt believe that i have changed at all ( because earlier that night i had called my friend and asked him if he had seen her with anyone else or if she was dating anyone, coincedently my friend is seeing her roommate - which i hooked them up. Well it seems that he told his girlfriend which in turn got back to karen.) she said that i should have never asked my friend cause she can do whatever she wants. She said that she is happy now and that is really i wanted. i just wanted it to be me and that will never happen. She told me flat out that she doesnt want to be with me right now. And that she is happy single. I cried most of the night and then i wrote this poem. I wrote this last night about 4 or 5 so dont laugh. I also had read her a few poems out of my journal and i typed them up last night and then i drove to her work and gave them to the secretary and she gave them to her. I think she got them but how would i know cause she probaly wont call back. but i know if she does that im screwed because i asked God for the strength to carry this heavy burden and i am just hoping and praying that he does. Cause if she came to me right now and said baby i want youback i probaly ... no without a doubt would take her back. I dont want to be like this anymore. please help ....another question how do i, if its true that i am addicted to her, how do i break the cycle and once i am comfortable being alone how do i stop it from happening again. I know prayer but seriously 3 out of 4 serious relationships that i ahve had seem to end with me smothering someone and them running for the hills. here is the stupid poem.
“Goodbye”
By Dell finney II
Such an ugly word,
There is nothing good about it –
Unless you are the one who says it,
I’m out of words that rhyme,
And out of tears to cry,
All I can do is sit back and sigh,
And look to the heavens and say (that I honestly without a doubt) –
God I tried.
I didn’t want to take from you, your fun highway,
To your friends and the bars go straight away.
A single night to laugh and play,
Another night just to talk about your day.
I wanted to look in your eyes and tell you everything was alright –
But an ending like that was never really in sight,
I talked to you and told you how I felt –
But you seem unconcerned about my plight.
I sit here alone,
Like a blind man to the night,
Wondering what you are dreaming of,
Is it us or something else -
Unlike me when I go to sleep -
All I do is envision you as I hold my pillow tight,
Thinking of you till the early morn,
But it doesn’t seem to me,
That you aren’t bothered or show the slightest concern,
Pain, I have seen in your eyes –
But to me and what we’ve been through,
I see no ties,
I will close my eyes as well,
To you, it won’t matter –
As long as my feelings to you, I don’t tell,
I am your past,
A stitch in time, that didn’t last.
Lessons we both have learned,
But for me this feeling for you –
I will forever yearn.
You told me I need to let this burn,
You have –
So I guess now it’s my turn.
Karen, you have taught me the greatest lesson to learn,
As I bring this to a close,
I wish instead of tear, it was a rose –
But you told me there is no place for us…
And thus, this relationship, has got to come to a close.
My wish is to hold onto you, now and forever,
But happiness you have found,
And what is left of my heart has finally hit the ground.
In pieces my heart will forever remain,
Unlike you there is no replacement that could ever tame -
The love of my life,
Through sickness, trouble and strife,
I thought you would always be my wife,
But in reality that is not life.
So here I am again at this word,
That can not be rhymed with –
But has no simpler meaning than when your love is not returned.
When nothing is left and to everything you did give,
And your heart is denied,
Thanks again for staying, but please don’t try again,
There is nothing else to say but -
Goodbye.
+-----------------------------------------------+
5/6/2004 “Remembering You(Karen)”
By Dell Finney II
The scent of your hair makes me stop and sniff,
Around your neck I close my eyes and take a wiff,
Your blushing cheeks all rosy and bright,
I know you went out tanning tonight,
A brilliant glow your skin does show,
Do your lips taste the same?
I would like to know.
Your eyes are a magnificent as the sky,
Pain, I see as you cry,
Your nose is there to breath in air,
How perfect it is and how wonderful, yet rare,
Your lips stand quivering as watch you try and speak,
My eyes move over to my favorite part of your cheek,
And this is my favorite it makes you unique,
Your neck I see and your shoulders too,
Kissing them gently I try to savor each kiss-
No, really its true,
Your breasts are beckoning me,
I won’t believe they will hang to your knees,
Your stomach and sides as my attention draws near,
You tighten up in anticipation-
I say to you, honey don’t be scared,
Your hips and thighs are just my size,
Your knees shake and calf muscle clinched,
Tighter than my fist,
Your toes so cute every single one,
Last but not least I must discuss,
Your wonderful ass – I see last,
So perfect and round my hands to miss,
I say baby don’t go-
Can I have a kiss?
I close my eyes and you are gone!
No trace of you can be found,
It seems you don’t exist.
Awake now and I hold my pillow tight,
Calling out your name,
Tears swell around my eyes,
And like Niagra Falls-
I begin to cry.
No I am no poet,
I must admit,
But if you have ever loved a woman –
What I say you get,
She is gone,
The smell of her hair is too,
She’s moved on and found someone new,
But baby, oh baby,
I can’t forget you.!
Dell: Well, I hope you understand from all this what she said pretty clearly: she doesn't want to be with you. So it goes. If, as you indicate, your relationships often follow the same pattern, then examine that pattern and figure out how to change yourself so that it doesn't happen again. I expect Karen is a lost cause, and she's said herself that you won't even be together again. Poems aren't going to change that.
Do something more useful. Quit writing about her, and as much as possible quit thinking about her. Quit calling her, quit asking your friends about her, and quit talking to her when she calls you. Find some new hobbies. Stay away from alcohol and drugs... don't replace this addiction with another one.
I have no idea if this relationship failed because of you, or her, or both, or whatever. But I do know that if you're miserable, it's your fault. You really need to give up on this girl, spend some time with friends who value you, and occupy your mind with other things. I'm not saying it's easy, but it will be a lot easier than living like you have been.
This sounds easy enough but if i could see the pattern i would change it, because feeling as i do right now is unbearable. If you tell me what i have experienced hasnt been love, then tell me what it was. I had my faults in the relationship, and my insecurities with trust. And she had her baggage as well. I am not sitting here trying to lead you to believe that i was a saint. Because i wasn't. I tried really hard to give of myself. As soon as she turned 21 she went out with her friends and never looked back. I have been unsuccesful when it comes to women. I dont know what pattern has to change or how to have people love me and not always want something or someone else. I pray as i always have that God would send me a woman that he wants me to be with but in the end i stand alone. I am 24 and scared out of my wits that i will be alone for the rest of my life, and that is a shame that i feel that way. Most guys my age are just concerned about gettingsome and out at the club but here i sit wanting a serious relationship and there is no woman that i have met that wants the same. So what would you do? Would you give up as i am trying to do.Or would you anti up and go in for another hand at chance? I have played hand for hand and got nowhere. And now i believe that mentality has got me to the emptiness i feel inside. The lonliness and worthless feelings just dont go away because you can sit in a room by yourself and not need anyone to be with you. Should i become a hermit and live in the moutains fighting daily for my own survival? i would be alone then with no other options? The most important thing in my life is love and the pursuit of the one that enhances life.without that feeling what good is life? What would be the point? to be friends with everyone you meet and try to be nice to everyone so that when you die you have no heirs? and you have come as cliche as dust in the wind? What is life worth if not for love? God gave his only begotten son because he loved us...so why wouldnt he want us to have love as well while we are here on earth? Questions seem to becoming more readily huh?
Dell: You wrote, "The most important thing in my life is love and the pursuit of the one that enhances life.without that feeling what good is life? What would be the point?"
That's your problem. The most important thing in life is certainly not romantic love. As long as that's your priority, it's going to be easy to be miserable.
If not love then what is it that should it be? For some reason i know that you are going to say something about God right? I love God and i know that i do alot of things wrong adn sometimes i get mad at hime cause I make choices that are wrong and instead of looking at my own behavior i blame God for letting this stuff happen to me. I just feel like my life is at a stand still. I am off from work because i hurt my back, no one really visits that much ( and i feel that i havent been a good friend to enough people for them to want to come and visti me) i sit alone and listen to music, i stopped reading as much as i used to, i have no real money built up, i'm in debt, im alone, my family has their own problems to deal with and live in illinois and dont see me ever or come and visti me everytime i have to go home and see them and they really dont care to see me, i feel so alone and the only person i can really bare down and get to the nitty gritty with is someone i dont know and lives many miles away and i write to him on his website. The people i talk to here on a daily basis could care less if i lived or died. Sometimes if eel like i dont belong here or anywhere and i have thought of suicide before but coulnt go through with it. I pray everyday to become a better person that people will like me for me and that i will be given the strength to make it through the next day. My life is in entire shambles and it seems like im grasping at straws...i have always wanted to be married and be in a loving enviornment but have fallen short at every turn. And now you tell me that my number one goal in life is wrong. what am i supposed to do. Thinking of being in love and having someone love me has gotten me through some of the roughest patches in my life. How is that so wrong?
Dell: You're right, the answer you're looking for is God. He give us relationships with people to help satisfy our lonliness, but we often make these people into idols that end up replacing God in our lives entirely. Rather than focuson romantic love, I suggest you find a church to join and become a part of.
Our families oftne let us down, just as any wife would, or friend, or anyone else. None of those makes a good replacement for god. But try to find a church that you feel comfortable in and with people your age, and then be a little outgoing and try to make friends. Not just with the girls, but with everyone. Pray that God will help you find the right church where he wants you to be, and then commit to it. It may take a few weeks or months to build relationships that are more than superficial, but stick with it. Go to lunch with people after church. Try to find ways to hang out with them. And so forth.
The last thing you need right now is a wife. Marriage (so I'm told) requires emotional maturity that you don't appear prepared for... yet. That doesn't mean you should despair, that just means that God's still working on you. He's working on me too! Be patient with yourself.
My mother died a year ago who I was very close to and I had major surgery last November and I became very dependent on one close frined. Now this close friend is backing away. And I do not have a close family. So I am alone and don't know how to deal with it. Still recovery from a facial tumor that made my face paralazed and I am off balance walking so I am limited to what I can do. Just started to drive again. Don't want to feel so dependent on one person that I can't take care of myself. Because that brings more pain when that person eventually does away and you are alone.
apanecki: I'll give the same advice I've given before: find a church.
There is a huge difference between being alone and being empty - if you're alone and empty, you're a Borderline. If you're alone and happy, you're Schizoid. Different clusters.
you have given little to no advice.
all you have done is had a big cry.
talked about god.
taken so of my less then valuable time.
and made me post a comment.
thanks for nothing.
Being alone is “the” challenge; resolving and reconciling with ourselves to achieve the internal truce we wish we had and don’t.
One of my favorite books has something to say on this most difficult subject.
Here is an excerpt ~ enjoy
~~~~~~~~~~~
From Letters to a Young Poet
By
Rainer Maria Rilke ~~~~~~~
And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it. This very wish, if you use it calmly and prudently and like a tool, will help you spread out your solitude over a great distance. Most people have (with the help of conventions) turned their solutions toward what is easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.
It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is - ; solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent - ?), it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ("to hearken and to hammer day and night"), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
But this is what young people are so often and so disastrously wrong in doing they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment. . . . : And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half-broken things that they call their communion and that they would like to call their happiness, if that were possible, and their future? And so each of them loses himself for the sake of the other person, and loses the other, and many others who still wanted to come. And loses the vast distances and possibilities, gives up the approaching and fleeing of gentle, prescient Things in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come; nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment, and poverty, and the escape into one of the many conventions that have been put up in great numbers like public shelters on this most dangerous road. No area of human experience is so extensively provided with conventions as this one is: there are live-preservers of the most varied invention, boats and water wings; society has been able to create refuges of very sort, for since it preferred to take love-life as an amusement, it also had to give it an easy form, cheap, safe, and sure, as public amusements are.
It is true that many young people who love falsely, i.e., simply surrendering themselves and giving up their solitude (the average person will of course always go on doing that - ), feel oppressed by their failure and want to make the situation they have landed in livable and fruitful in their own, personal way -. For their nature tells them that the questions of love, even more than everything else that is important, cannot be resolved publicly and according to this or that agreement; that they are questions, intimate questions from one human being to another, which in any case require a new, special, wholly personal answer -. But how can they, who have already flung themselves together and can no longer tell whose outlines are whose, who thus no longer possess anything of their won, how can they find a way out of themselves, out of the depths of their already buried solitude?
They act out of mutual helplessness, and then if, whit the best of intentions, they try to escape the conventions that is approaching them (marriage, for example), they fall into the clutches of some less obvious but just as deadly conventional solution. For then everything around them is - convention. Wherever people act out of a prematurely fused, muddy communion, every action is conventional: every relation that such confusion leads to has its own convention, however unusual (i.e., in the ordinary sense immoral) it may be; even separating would be a conventional step, an impersonal, accidental decision without strength and without fruit.
Whoever looks seriously will find that neither for death, which is difficult, nor for difficult love has any clarification, any solution, any hint of a path been perceived; and for both these tasks, which we carry wrapped up and hand on without opening, there is not general, agreed-upon rule that can be discovered. But in the same measure in which we begin to test life as individuals, these great Things will come to meet us, the individuals, with greater intimacy. The claims that the difficult work of love makes upon our development are greater than life, and we, as beginners, are not equal to them. But if we nevertheless endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in the whole easy and frivolous game behind which people have hidden from the most solemn solemnity of their being, - then a small advance and a lightening will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us. That would be much.
We are only just now beginning to consider the relation of one individual to a second individual objectively and without prejudice, and our attempts to live such relationships have no model before them. And yet in the changes that time has brought about there are already many things that can help our timid novitiate.
The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being.
This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: the two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.
And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life. - All good wished to you, dear Mr. Kappus!
Yours,
Rainer Maria Rilke