The Loud Mind Of A Quiet Person

Chapter XI- Loneliness

    What did you say, Hemingway? "Write hard and clear about what hurts". Ok, I got you. This chapter and the following one will be about what hurts. First of all, loneliness does not come from simply being alone. By alone I mean both from a romantic perspective (single) and from a spatial one. Loneliness must not by any means be confused with solitude. Jim Carey has the following beautiful quote: "Solitude is dangerous. It's very addictive. It becomes a habit after you realize how peaceful and calm it is. It's like you don't want to deal with people anymore because they drain your energy". Some people from internet changed a bit this quote, and replaced solitude with loneliness, which makes no sense at all. Solitude is good, loneliness hurts. They are pretty much opposite. I got frustrated when I was feeling lonely and I saw this quote starting with loneliness. Since I am an introvert, solitude is a way of life. As an introvert, I learned to make the most of my alone time. Enjoying my alone time does not prevent me from loneliness though. Loneliness is probably the main source of depression in my case. What is loneliness? Well, I would definite it as a lack of a true connection. It feels as if you cannot be understood or felt. I think it is pretty normal giving all the information I said in this book so far about my personality to feel lonely. But that does not make easy. It helps a little bit though to know that is nothing wrong with you. Loneliness feels like you are disconnected from all the people you know. I have close people in my life, but not so close as I wanted too. It is a closeness brought by time, not my common feelings and thinking. Being a man makes it a little bit worse because we, men, do not have a tight relationship between us. We can laugh, play, hang out and so on but there is not much depth. I am grateful for the relationships I have in my life, but I want more than what is a normal friendship. I want to evolve, to have my mind challenged, to support and be supported mentally. When I hang out, if the circle is close, like let's say 4-5 people, things are decent. The more people are, the more I feel drained and lonely. It happened so often to be in a room full of people and to be invisible. Luckily I had the phone with me. If I could, I would listen to music with my earphones but that would be too socially defying. At least it is not seen as a rude behavior when you listen to music in classrooms during the breaks.

I can do small talk, I just do not enjoy it and I do not want to do forced things. Some people talk just to fill the sound void with something. Should not conversations be productive? Gossips are not productive. If I am comfortable, I am the soul of the party in my own way. I am talkative and make jokes. I mentioned that I feel powerful enough to achieve in life anything that depends on me. Stopping loneliness does not depend on me. Loneliness is a passive process. It is not like hunger. You are hungry, you go to the fridge. Problem solved. If you are lonely, you cannot make out of nowhere a deep connection. At best, you can try to call your friend to do something together. That just makes you forget about loneliness for one or two hours. As if this process was not mentally damaging enough, it also affects your physical health. It is as bad as smoking and drinking. Not only it steals the joy of the present, but it affects your future too. The feeling of not being able to be understood does not come out of nowhere. I tried to talk about what was important for me and I felt like an alien. Sometimes I feel that a single person is enough to make loneliness disappear. Of course, the more like-minded people like you, the better but one is enough. It is about quality not quantity. For now, I do not have such person in my life but since I discovered myself better I know I am not alone.

Music helped me a lot with loneliness. Internet helped me too with information and quotes about empathy, awakening, loneliness and other important things. Here is a lovely quote from Einstein:" Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation." This quote helped me a lot with this fight. When I feel lonely, I do not want to use people. For example, I won't start a small talk with a person I know I can talk with just to ease my loneliness for a bit. If I was fine, I would not talk with that person so I just feel like using that person, even though there is nothing harmful in it. Plus, I feel like I would not respect my principles about doing things naturally and being honest. When I talked with people about being lonely, they recommended me to go out, to meet new people etc. I appreciate and I am grateful for every advice I have ever received but as I said, it was not about the fact I was alone. I had people in my life. It is a about connection. And I do not think a deep connection would pop up just because I go to search for it. I did not understood how I was supposed to meet new people anyway. If I want to practice a new hobby, I would do it for the hobby, not for the new people I would meet there in hope I would feel less lonely. If somehow I feel like going to a club, I would do it to dance, not to meet new people.

I spent so many days talking only with my mother on the phone and with the professors in the university when I had no choice but to answer a question. It was not be shutting the exterior world down. If I did not reach out for others, nobody reached out for me. This was sad given the fact that I am polite and kind. I knew I should not be envy or judging but because of my loneliness, it was frustrating for me see how people talk with others and laugh about small stuff and feel good. The problem was not loneliness, but the sad mood in general. Maybe some of them were lonely too, not as much as me in those moments since they had at least a person to talk to, but still. I was often deeply hurt and did my best to act normal too. We are sociable beings. Our brain craves socializing. Loneliness and the feeling of not belonging are not comfortable at all. We want to share parts of lives and we want to be involved in others' lives. Speaking of belonging, Linkin Park's song Somewhere I Belong is, among other topics, about loneliness and it has always helped me feel less lonely. A lot of times I wanted to go out and to fight against loneliness and play ping pong or bowling or pool or eat something with somebody or to do any activity that requires at least two people and I could not. I envied anybody that seemed to have a normal life. At work I was just doing my job, took my break to listen some music and repeat it all until the work day finished. I remember I was at work around 11 P.M, the volume of work was very low and I was just scrolling bored on my newsfeed while all the other co-workers were gathered somewhere and had a great time laughing. I felt so low. That was not necessarily because of loneliness. It was mostly because of the depression. But I guess it was a mix of both. Can depressed people not feel lonely? I feel like they are very deeply connected. Some people can literally share every little aspect of their lives, every thought, basically, they share everything. I have so many stories about my life that will be only known by me. Even now, one year away from my worst moments, I do not have a single person that I speak with regularly. With my childhood friends we just share memes or some sports information and that is all. I want to talk with a person for hours. Well, all the things I have not said yet and I wished I could are here now so it is all fine. It is not quite a conversation, it is a monologue but it is the best I can get. I feared that I would die alone. The fear was not about how the ending was. The fear was living in loneliness all of my life. Maybe at 20 it was way too soon to have such fear, but I do not get to choose what my fears are. It was frustrating to think that the world is almost fully connected thanks to the technology and we were more than 7.5 billion people yet I felt so disconnected from this world. I knew I was different. But I am still a human, not an alien (even though I was told I act like one). There must be people who feel and think the way I do, but they are just not in my life yet.

What can we do to feel less lonely? Music helped more than I could ever explain because I found so many relatable songs. Introspections and finding truths about yourself helps a lot too. Since I know I am an Emapth, INFJ, demisexual and other personality traits, my loneliness decreased because my feelings and thoughts made more sense and because I know I belong to groups of other people who are like this. Having a pet must also reduce loneliness. I do not know what it is like, but I know that it cannot fail. How could it? It is another soul that cares for you and that you can spend your time with. Books are useful in lonely scenarios. They represent a healthy way of escaping reality. Learning to enjoy doing by yourself the things you wanted to with others is probably the hardest, but it also the most rewarding. People won't be always available when you want so you must count on yourself. That is pretty much all I can think about now. I do not want to say clichés either. For me, the general mood is the most important aspect. If I feel like I hit my rock bottom, loneliness smothers me. If I feel better, the effects of loneliness are not that strong. Feeling better though requires a lot of effort and patience. Anything you do in this regard is worth it though. So take your time.