Compared to my younger years, I have become much better at being alone, in a way. Due to the many hours of practice that I have had, I gradually acquired a large portfolio of skills: cooking and eating alone, going to the movies alone, travelling alone, moving alone, and being lonely alone. Of this long list of questionable achievements, the last one has been the most daunting, and, I confess, not yet fully mastered.
Many before me has already pointed out the differences between being alone and being lonely. Alone: having no one else present; on one's own. It describes what is externally observable and verifiable. We are alone when we are not awash with the physical presence of other fellow humans. Lonely: sad because one has no friends or company; (of a place) unfrequented and remote. It describes what is experienced internally. It is certainly possible to feel lonely in a crowd.
We all experience the two states at one time or another. Being alone is rather pleasant by itself. There are few joys that appease my heart more than exploring my surroundings -- the Prado on a slightly foggy Sunday evening, enshrined in diffuse light of speckled violet and gold, or a muddy country lane in the shades of newly sprouted branches -- with my senses fully open, my body and mind in unison, which, more often than not, requires one to be alone. Being lonely, on the other hand, is not without its charm: loneliness, instead of stirring up great grief and sorrow, slowly gnaws at our hearts, and releases melancholy more than anything else, perhaps with a tinge of boredom. I believe that this is fertile ground for all sorts of artistic undertakings: we are not ecstatic, not deeply caught in the web of strong passions so that our mind and hands are tied; nor are we content, at ease with the world so that the wordless, undifferentiated joy of being prevails. We are in a state of gentle disequilibrium, of staggered whims, of bittersweet roasted almond chocolate.
What happens though, when the two converge? Is there anything special about being lonely, alone...?
It seems to me that, if one happens to be alone as loneliness strikes, the state of being lonely can easily outstay its welcome. Somehow, when I am alone, it is really difficult for me to see loneliness as a temporary state rather than a permanent condition. Subtle energy is exchanged between the internal interpretation of being lonely and the outward manifestation of being alone, and amplify each other ad infinitum. When I think about it, the hardest hours of my life are exactly those: hugging my numb leg attached to a swollen (and soon to be diagnosed fractured) ankle on a coach seat somewhere between Montreal and Toronto, lonely and alone; sitting in a chair of an interior-facing bedroom crying for lost love, lonely and alone; working from a nondescript office late at night, dreading an upcoming operation that requires full anaesthesia, lonely and alone...
Does this mean that we are not meant to survive the coinciding of those two states, that we mustn't be alone when we are lonely, and vice versa? That we must distract ourselves with more benign emotions when we are alone? That we must not allow ourselves to be deprived of company, when loneliness is biting?
Little by little, I am of the opinion that how we face those cold and difficult hours (hours, for they do eventually pass) is telling of our characters in other areas of life. One might belong to the group that operates on the rule: avoid being alone. There we have those who never have lunch alone, those who always accept invitations and extend them, those who do not sit well with silences. Or, one might belong to the group whose key imperative is to avoid being lonely. There the disciples always fill their mind with thoughts and images from one source of another. They do not seek human company, but crave mental distraction of all sorts, from the most absurd to the most esoteric. I have belonged to both camps, at different times, but I am more adverse of loneliness than aloneness, so my natural defence has tend to be to force-feed my mind with books, readings, random thoughts and conversations, constantly and always.
And, what of it?
I have no rational evidence backing what I am about to say. I only speak out of intuition, of gut feelings, of a conviction grounded in the body, from the tip of my nose to my little toe. I believe that it is necessary, it is essential for us to be lonely alone. To live through it as another season in a year, to be swept and destroyed by it, maybe, but not to build up castles and trenches against it. No matter how uncomfortable it might be, we must keep our hearts soft, and our minds, pliable. I believe that there, sitting in our lonely aloneness, we are very close to the bottom of things, because the pain, the fear, the sadness that envelop us when we are there, rock bottom, is the very material that connects us to each other. I can love, because I have suffered, and I can love you, because you have suffered.
Today is one of those days that I needed to repeat what I believe to myself, to shout it from the top of the roof. Because of the nature of my stay here, I am often alone; because of the timing of this period in my life, I am often lonely.
“But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.”
Thank you for reading.