Name-patronymic of loneliness

Loneliness… Some run away from it, others strive for it. What kind of loneliness is it, about which so much has been written and said? Is it possible to paint his portrait or will he always be like a famous picture in which you see either a beautiful woman or a terrible old woman?

A hermit who has landed on an uninhabited island to spend the rest of his life on it and thereby come closer to God, and some new Robinson thrown onto the same island experience completely different feelings. And the meaning of what seems to be the same thing for them is diametrically opposed: for the hermit — good and freedom, for Robinson — misfortune and deprivation of freedom.

In the clothes of loneliness, very different experiences appear. Getting to them is like peeling an onion: you will cry. Isn’t that why we so often prefer to point the arrows at the events that led to loneliness? And in itself, the role of a victim of loneliness brings some kind of dividends in the form of communication — they will regret, sympathize, even get tired of stupid advice, but still not alone. So undress the bulb or not? If you want to be a victim, don’t undress. True, you take risks, as in the movie «Chairman», with your «My husband is a scoundrel! Give me back my husband! turn out to be a laughingstock, but who does not risk does not drink champagne.

You can try to undress … «I climb the wall from loneliness without him.» Loneliness — what is it? Can’t live without sex? I do not have anyone to talk to? No one will give you a glass of water? There is no person to whom I can serve a glass of water? Am I scared of being alone in an apartment? Am I supposed to be responsible for everything now? Am I a freak at all? Where can I look for another? Etc. etc. Each of the possible answers implies a solution.

Not up to reasoning when emotions overwhelm? What do you feel: resentment, irritation, helplessness, anger, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, you no longer respect yourself? And if you look at what his departure means to you, along with the feelings you experience, it becomes almost clear that the point is not in the loneliness itself, but in these very specific thoughts and experiences. You look, and there is a way out. You can’t cope alone or with the help of friends — you can go to a psychologist, but no longer with a vaguely indefinite loneliness. “I’m so lonely”, “I’m terribly angry at him — I would have killed, but I feel guilty about his departure, and in these thoughts” and “It’s a cross on me as a woman, if he found something in that one — she’s on five years older, I roar like a beluga and don’t know what to do now” – these are completely different requests for help.

Loneliness, if we have not chosen it ourselves for something, leans in, fetters, crushes, suffocates, deprives life of its usual meanings. In whatever situation it may arise (loneliness of circumstances — forced isolation, for example, monthly duty «at the point» or a solitary cell; loneliness among people — together, at work, in a crowd …), do not run away from him, but look at him in a person, to name the thoughts and feelings connected with him by their proper names means to make a kind of map that helps to navigate and cope with it. It will be yours, and only yours, card — for another in the same situation, it will be different, his own. And everyone will have their own way out of loneliness.

“Loneliness is not when I am alone or rejected or not understood. The root is that I can’t be with myself. I have nothing to do with myself.» He discovered the most important secret of loneliness. Because the person is really alone. Lonely in front of the infinite, beyond his control of the universe, before the Last Judgment. Lonely already because there is no other like him, and, to paraphrase A. Voznesensky a little: “Send me, Lord, a second one, so that he is like me,” always remains a dream. We are looking for those with whom we feel good and without whom we feel bad, instead of looking for those with whom we feel good and without whom we feel good. It’s bad because we don’t know how to be with ourselves. E. Fromm was right: «The ability to be alone is a condition for the ability to love.» Add: and be loved.