lonliness

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I feel alone when I feel the void inside me not outside me.

Yes! That’s exactly how I feel, and nothing seems to get rid of it. Well, not permanently at least and what’s more worrying is that I can’t conceive of anything that would. It always just seems to be there, sometimes more intense than others.

I venture to guess and hope that love will eliminate it.

Is it bad to be alone?

does feeling bad make it bad?

There’s a difference between being alone and feeling alone. Obviously it’s not bad to be alone if you choose to be alone. Actually it’s not ‘bad’ if you don’t choose it either, it just feels lousy. Then of course, as it’s been already said, you can be surrounded by people and still feel alone, and so on and so forth

Think I know which kind of alone you mean Karolina.

And I dont think there is much to do about it.

Frequency and type change as life changes, but it seems to me that it always stays there.

I try not to call people. : )

“when do you feel most excrucuatingly alone?” When you ask this I believe you mean to say when one is most lonesome or lonely? Because as someone mentioned above, one can be alone and yet not lonely or lonesome. So I would say that I feel most excruciatingly lonely when I have nothing in particular to look forward to in that moment. When you have things to look forward to, I have noticed that you rarely feel lonely.

I don’t have a friend to even tell that I have no friends.

My recent thought. May this explain the depths of lonileness to you.

"And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man is alone;” -Genesis 2:18

I always feel quite alone, but I always have the weird idea that someone is watching my life like it is a movie. That’s what keeps me going sometimes, I suppose. I have always been different from other people; I stick out in groups because I’m so quiet I slip into the shadows. Usually, people either love me or hate me due to that. Like with my teachers - they either absolutely love me, or they absolutely hate me. But being lonely has given me many things that others will not ever have.

Yes I’ve has this idea also throughout most of my life. But I’ve been fighting against it whenever my mind decides to nurish it because its rather absurd. I wonder however why some people develop this. Is this a self-defence mechanism that helps us cope with our lonileness while growing up?

I would also be curious to know how old you are Spirit. I nurtured such an idea until I was about 17.

Okay, this is coming from a person who has struggled with depression himself:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Scratch that, there is one thing wrong with you: You are allowing the actions of others to determine your own self worth.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being “yourself” at all times. The think is finding people who will accept you for yourself and not expect you to conform to thier standards.

That isn’t an easy thing, and I don’t mean to make it sound like one. But my point is that the intolerance of others does not translate to a failure on your part.

To get a bit more on topic, my belief about the source of lonliness is this: You’re lonely when you believe that you are not understood or cared about, not when your “alone”.

Of course, on those grounds, many people, myself included, are lonely.

Like Underground Man, I’ve felt this way too. The odd thing is with me, the “medium” seems to switch from day to day. Sometimes I feel like my life is being watched like some kind of serialized television show, other times its a book or series of books.

Of course, I don’t honestly believe in this. However, the thought does comfort me somehow.

My guess is that it helps to make you feel like your life is purposeful and lead by some greater force (in the same way that religion does). It also provides that ever-so-nice feeling of being the “center of attention”.

By the way, sorry for posting twice, I typed up my other reply before I spotted this post.

I have to confirm the relativity of loneliness. I can live in solitude for a month without feeling lonely but once I venture into social life I’m easily depressed. At first I try to be myself and this works for about five minutes because after that I realize that meaningful conversation obviously isn’t the key. So I try to blend in a little and I get some good responses and the bonding really seems to kick in. But after a while I get bored and irritated because everything seems to adhere to a certain social protocol. I become a spectator in the crowd and seeing all of them laughing and having fun I begin to doubt myself. Why can’t I connect to others by drinking and conforming? I certainly tried hard enough.

I’m fourteen years old. I also don’t like it when I get the idea in my head that someone is watching my life, because it’s impossible (except maybe God). Maybe people develop this because they want attention that they haven’t gotten? Or maybe it’s just because they’re quite lonely?

cuboidz mentioned boredom and irritation in social protocol.

I wonder if anyone has had this experience. You are at a party and feeling unutterably lonely because no one is talking to you. You sort of ‘will’ someone (who is currently centre of attention) to come over and talk to you.

Amazingly they do, and they turn out to be self interested and dull. You feel totally bored with them and wish you could get away.

The secret, which I have never mastered but truly believe in, is to be OK with yourself whatever the situation, and master the art of being ‘out’ of the conversations without social paranoia.

Why do we invest others with such power over us??

Your post makes me lonely. As I glance to the left I notice a bellybutton, which I assume to be yours. This lovely little bellybutton reminds me off my lack of a significant other.

Here’s an interesting poem by e.e. cummings:

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l
iness

Get it?

When I’m lonely, I write. I write the most when I’m experiencing these darker emotions. Loneliness has lost any positive connotation that it may have had in the past due to the societal evolution of our language. To me it still exists. Loneliness, independence, standing alone, unique, etc…

Appreciate your Oneliness.

iZach

You can feel lonely if you are seriously pursuing an esoteric art form (philosophy?) in an age where all the great ones who inspired you are long dead. A village elder in a Third world country wanting to preserve his cultural traditions and language would feel, as he sees all the youth leaving for the big city, very lonely indeed. Loneliness connotes physical distance from people, but it can also mean distance from the active thoughts of people. I feel lonely in this hyper materialistic nihilistic egotistical culture- perhaps the marginalization of philosophy explains so much of the negativity on this forum.

Nugan wrote -

“…my belief about the source of loneliness is this: You’re lonely when you believe that you are not understood or cared about, not when your “alone”.”

I am in full agreement on this. To put it another way, you feel the full agony of loneliness when you are trying to be close with someone who is emotionally cold towards you. If this person is your parent, then it’s ‘hello therapy’ in later life.

Maybe some people are so needy themselves that they can’t give emotional support, even to their children, or maybe sometimes the worst is true: that they don’t want to give it.

The bottom line in this, is that we have to be able to take the full feeling of the rejection and then move on. It’s hard, but there is no other possible way.