I am an island of consciousness – no one else can do my thinking; no one else can do my feeling – I must embrace my aloneness
Contrary to Donne’s famous line “No man is an island“, our minds are encompassed by a sea of distinction and separateness. While we can communicate by words, and feel comparatively through empathy, we cannot truly know the feelings, thoughts, and mind of another person in absolutely the same way as they do. This feeling of separateness, of loneliness, is very painful to some, and not so much to others. Some feel isolated because they do not have sufficient social interaction either at an individual, intimate level, or at a greater, less intimate level, to satisfy their ego’s need for connection and social activity. This pain of separation is based on each person’s need for validation, intimacy, and love.
Intimacy is a complicated need. It is impacted by so many individual and social facets that it is hard to characterize a normal measurement of how much intimacy a person needs. All people have an innate desire for belonging, love, sex, and physical contact. It is through intimacy that deep, personal bonds are created by couples. Once a relationship proceeds to a certain state of intimacy, the termination of that relationship can be painful. The loss of the intimacy extracts a great deal of esteem and the ego is harmed. There are some who never have known how to be intimate because of some psychic trauma.
Our personal validation is affected by how we perceive the depth and quantity of our personal relationships. We tend to measure ourselves in some way against other people — to look for some degree of normality based on how we measure up. Our sense of self is tied to what we think others think about us, and if we tend to have few friends, and no intimate relations, there is a tendency to feel “less than”. Society vaunts the “in crowd” and those who are socially adept. There are a number of useful qualities held by the social heavyweights but there is not an absolute necessity of social proclivity for personal worth. A reserved and less sociable person needs feel no shame. It is a personal matter.
Love is the most complicated aspect of our connectedness. We all want to feel loved and valued. It is in the absence of this affection that true loneliness holds the most meaning and pain. There are those who are truly unloved by an absence of people who would hold meaning to them. Those who have lost their families, or been ostracized by friends and society, or who because of some mental or emotional maladjustment cannot seem to meld with their fellows. These seem to be outcast and have never learned to love themselves. This lack of love and the inability to replace external love with internal love leads to depression and self-isolation.
Loneliness is hardest to cope for those who value other people a great deal. It takes a great depth of personal understanding of one’s self to overcome the loss of the love of others. Accepting one’s responsibility for the state of things and forgiving our self for past wrongs brings some relief and understanding for our dilemma. But there is no true replacement for another soul. Loving our self and accepting our situation brings only so much solace. Ultimately we have to face our fear of aloneness and make a choice: embrace aloneness as a voluntary state, and, if we want to again find love and intimacy, learn what it takes and instill in ourselves the courage to find love again.