Loneliness

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Loneliness can be a problem for psychonauts. This was brought up in one of the latest podcasts by Max Freakout, and I think many of us can identify with this problem. I will post a few texts here, all having to do with loneliness, love and community. Feel free to add your own!

The first passage is from "The Different Drum, Community Making and Peace" by M.Scott Peck.

Chapter 2 Individuals and the Fallacy of Rugged Individualism I am lonely. To a degree my loneliness - and yours - is inevitable. Like you, I am an individual. And that means I am unique. There is no one else like me in this whole wide world. This "I-entity" that is me is different from each and every other "I-entity" that ever lived. Our separate identities, like fingerprints, make all of us unique individuals, identifiable one from another. This is the way it must be. The very genetic code is such that (except for the rare aberration of identical twins) each of us is not only subtly different biologically from any other human being who ever existed but is substantially dissimilar. From the moment of conception. And if that were not enough, all of us are born into different environments and develop differently according to a unique pattern throughout our own individual lives. Indeed, many believe this is not only the way it must be but is also the way it should be. Most Christians believe God designed it that way; He designed each soul differently. Christian theologians have reached a well-nigh universal conclusion: God loves variety. In variety He delights. And nowhere is that variety more apparent and inevitable than among the human species. Psychologists may or may not agree with notions of divine creation, but almost all agree with the theologians that the uniqueness of our individuality is called for. They envision it as the goal of human development that we should become fully ourselves. Theologians sometimes speak of this as the cal to "freedom" - the freedom to be our true individual selves as God created us to be. The psychiatrist Carl Jung named this goal of human development "individuation." The process of human development is one of becoming fully individual. Most of us never totally complete the process and may never get very far at all. Most, to a greater or lesser degree, fail to individuate - to separate - ourselves from family, tribe, or caste. Even into old age we remain figuratively tied to the apron strings of our family and culture. We are still dictated to by the values and expectations of our mothers and fathers. We still follow the direction of the prevailing wind and bow before the shibboleths of our society. We go with the crowd. From laziness and fear - fear of loneliness, fear of responsibility, and other nameless dreads - we never truly learn to think for ourselves and dare to be out of step with the stereotypes. But in light of all we understand, this failure to individuate is a failure to grow up and become fully human. For we are called to be individuals. We are called to be unique and different. We are also called to power. In this individuation process we must learn how to take responsibility for ourselves. We need to develop a sense of autonomy and self-determination. We must attempt, as best we can, to be captains of our own ships if not exactly masters of our destiny. Furthermore, we are called to wholeness. We should use what gifts or talents we are given to develop ourselves as fully as possible. As women, we need to strengthen our masculine sides; as men, our feminine sides. If we are to grow, we must work on the weak spots that prevent growth. We are beckoned towarde that self-sufficiency, that wholeness required for independence of thought and action. But this is only one side of the story. It is true that we are called to wholeness. But the reality is that we can never become completely whole in and of ourselves. We cannot be all things to ourselves and to others. We cannot be perfect. We cannot be doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, farmers, politicians, stonemasons, and theologians, all rolled into one. It is true that we are called to power. Yet the reality is that there is a point beyond which our sense of self-determination not only becomes inaccurate and prideful but increasingly self-defeating. It is true that we are created to be individually unique. Yet the reality is that we are inevitably social creatures who desperately need each other not merely for sustenance, not merely for company, but for any meaning to our livs whatsoever. These, then, are the paradoxical seeds from which community can grow.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

And from Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled, A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth":

There is another problem with power: aloneness.* Here there is a similarity, in at least one dimension, between spiritual and political power. Someone who is approaching the peak of spiritual evolution is like someone at the peak of political power. There is no one above to whom to pass the buck; no one to blame; no one to tell you how to do it. There may not even be anyone on the same level to share the agony or the responsibility. Others may advise, but the decision is yours alone. You alone are responsible. In another dimension, the aloneness of enormous spiritual power is even greater than that of political power. Since their level of awareness is seldom as high as their exalted positions, the politically powerful almost always have their spiritual equals with whom they can communicate. So presidents and kings will have their friends and cronies. But the person who has evolved to the highest level of awareness, of spiritual power, will likely have no one in his or her circle of acquaintances with whom to share such depth of understanding. One of the most poignant themes of the Gospels is Christ's continual sense of frustration on finding that there was no one who could really understand him. No matter how hard he tried, how much he extended himself, he could not lift the minds of even his own disciples to his level. The wisest followed him but could not catch up with him, and all his love could not relieve him of the necessity to lead by walking ahead, utterly alone. This kind of aloneness is "shared" by all who travel the farthest on the journey of spiritual growth. It is such a burden that it simply could not be borne were it not for the fact that as we outdistance our fellow humans our relationship to God inevitably becomes correspondingly closer. In the communion of growing consciousness, of knowing with God, there is enough joy to sustain us.

* I make a distinction between aloneness and loneliness. Loneliness is the unavailability of people to communicate with on any level. Powerful people are surrounded by others who are only too eager to communicate with them; hence they are seldom lonely and may even yearn for loneliness. Aloneness, however, is the unavailability of someone to communicate with at your level of awareness.

 

[No-Key]

I get the feeling there is this influence to be overly social in our world of high tech communication. It isn't from chit chat and spending comfortable time with friends that creativity and genius cultivate, it is from solitary personal development. I think most people just don't know how to be lonely effectively, but in any case, I defer to Kahlil Gibran, and though he is speaking of Joy and Sorrow here, essentially, we reflecting on the sorrow of being alone, and I find it helpful. This is from "The Prophet".

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Kahlil Gibran eh?

And more...

 

[Forkbender]

I think loneliness is essential in the development of any human being. If you are truly alone for just one second, you will start noticing that you are not alone. Most of us dare not to be truly alone. I myself fear that when I'm alone I will be unhappy, and God forbid that. This message has been reinforced in the media for so long, that I think it is not strange that people fear of being alone. It's not the loneliness that holds them back, it is the fear.

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

True, but I often wish there were more broadminded people around...

I'm really getting off-topic here, but here are some more quotes:

 

[????????]

I have always thought that there's something off with me because of the way I don't appear to need other people like they apparently do, like I am a "loner" by default. But I don't mean this in a bad way, its just how i feel, i don't get depressed if i don't leave my house for the entire weekend, i don't feel the need to socialize as much, maybe, than the average person... like this social chip of my brain is messed up

Having said this I also value each experience with new and known people around me and I'm interested in learning from them, because the more I learn from others the more I learn from myself.

 

[????????]

My last post was very optimistic but in reality it's kind of bittersweet... what I wrote it's true but sometimes I feel alienated because of the way people, my friends included, go over things; I feel in a different wavelength, more of a contemplative state and sometimes that conflicts with theirs... so it's definitely bittersweet :?

 

[tryptonaut]

????????, that is exactly what I feel. Maybe it is because I was raised an only child - but on the other hand I know someone who has 5 brothers and sisters and feels about the same.

I have learned to accept that I am not a weird person just because I need to be alone sometimes - I like being with friends and all, just not as often as others. Last week I had four days off after three weeks of too much work, so I turned off my phone and didn't see anybody for the entire four days. It was so refreshing!

Well, I can't change myself, I need my alone time - my real friends are ok with it. All the others who think I need to change aren't my friends anyways, so I don't care

 

[????????]

Yes yes I agree, I too thought something was weird with me but isn't it WEIRDER that some people just can't be by themselves for a while??? :roll:

 

[Guest]

such a wonderful topic, my friends. i don't think loneliness is the lack of social activity, but the absense of contact with other people. i praise solitude as a perfect and balanced state-of-being, with lots of social activity within ourselves, that so many people tend to ignore and move the focus always away from him/her.
i don't think we are aliens just because we can travel far more in our minds than by airplane, we will be aliens if we force ourselves to be like others, or others to be like us. as a matter of fact, i don't think this is important. personal relations are one of the few things that don't have a physical manifestation, and if one chooses carefully a friend, i really don't think it is important. we should move the "light beam" away from us and learn to forget what experience taught us.
primitive man also had friends, and we don't care about that, do we ? some of them were also like you or me, loners, wanderers, sociopaths, schizofrenics, etc.
loneliness is a chat with yourself, and if you can't stand being alone, you never heard your thoughts. i think this is the main reason for the people that can't stand being alone, because they use social relations to cover their anguish, or sadness, or whatever.
if we care to think about it, society may be the biggest hoax of all time: created to separate man from natural elements, it has grown to an "independent nature", and one day, with the "help the community" feeling, man will become completely alienated towards the group. this has already happened many centuries ago, with the "invention" of property, virtual trading (aka money) and so on. in a last thought, every single invention may be an attempt to "free" us from loneliness, giving outselves to a bigger group.


edit: rustey englisch neeedz orthografic mending

 

[????????]

daytripper: I totally dig what you said, we are synchronized to the same wavelength

...i think this is the main reason for the people that can't stand being alone, because they use social relations to cover their anguish, or sadness, or whatever.

And this is the same people that get bad trips even tough there's a good setting (??) in the psychedelic experience you are going to have a little chat with yourself whether you're prepared to it or not not saying every bad trip is because of this but you know where I'm getting to, no?

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

And this is the same people that get bad trips even tough there's a good setting (??)

I also feel quite comfortable living by myself, most of the time that is. But at other times, and this very often happens in the middle of a trip, I become restless and disturbed about my "aloneness".

 

[Guest]

i think that having a bad trip is not a consequence of having a good relation with yourself, although having one is heavily required :lol:
you can be confortable with yourself and have a pretty bad trip, and after that, you should learn what went wrong. a single trip can take months to be understood, that's why i have serious doubts about the "psychonaut" intention of people that take lsd, or shrooms, or whatever every week, or even in smaller periods of time. bad trips are far more educational than good trips, IMHO. good trips are like having a nice sunny day, when it ends, it ends, and it was fantastic! bad trips are like sawing off an arm, you need to remake your life and learn how to use your brain from the scratch.
once i had the worst trip of my life with lsd, and i could tell you that when it ended, i felt such a bliss that i never felt before. and i learned a lot. i became troubled by my aloneliness, but i had to dig thru it, and i reached the most insane truth, that even today, i fail to express into words.
a big hug, my fellow psychonauts!

 

[skrudge]

bad trips are far more educational than good trips, IMHO. good trips are like having a nice sunny day, when it ends, it ends, and it was fantastic! bad trips are like sawing off an arm, you need to remake your life and learn how to use your brain from the scratch.

I totally agree with you Daytripper. When I have a bad trip I feel way, way stronger and more confident afterwards.

Anyone ever had some kind of force-blanket that was being thrown over you mentally in a trip?
Hell of a fight that was

 

[Guest]

i once had to f@ck the devil to escape from hell, and a sofa once showed me that there are far more things in him that i could understand and remember.
my last trip was 6 months ago, and i still don't think it is time to do it again. so you can see how bad my trip got! now i feel like Obelix, that caracter from Asterix, that took the strenght potion while he was little, and he is permanently affected by it. now i feel like i am also permanently under the spell of ego-death...
now, an on-topic question: why do lonely people think of trusting another person ?

 

[BridgeUnder]

Funny this, right now I'm reading "Party Of One".
http://www.annelirufus.com/

Here's a quote from that site :

My book Party of One is about our subculture - the subculture that will never, by nature, join hands and whose voices will never, by nature, form a chorus. Some loners are neuroscientists and some are office cleaners. Some are sculptors and some are Survivor fans. Some are law students and some are surfers. No two loners are alike, but all of us have one thing in common: we like to be alone. We like it. Everyone else - nonloners, that is — can't stand to be alone. They squirm. They feel ashamed. They yearn for company when they're alone. They're bored and don't know what to do. They're lonely.

I'm PROUD I'm a loner. It's the only way for me to live. I don't care what society says is right or "normal", I do things my way.
Am I lonely? Hell no, most of the time I'm with my best friend : me.

 

[????????]

Well I'm talking about bad trips like I knew much but I really haven't had an intense bad trip --I had, however, an intense emotional break down that I guess counts as a bid trip on life and because of it, I understand what you all say about learning, becasue I learned SO much that day, even considering it one of the worst days in my whole life! anyway I'm healthier and saner now 8)

I'm PROUD I'm a loner. It's the only way for me to live. I don't care what society says is right or "normal", I do things my way.
Am I lonely? Hell no, most of the time I'm with my best friend : me.

I relate.

 

[Forkbender]

True, but I often wish there were more broadminded people around...

Once you start to talk to people you will notice that most of them are pretty broadminded once they feel safe. I don't feel I cannot talk with certain issues with most people. I do feel that I cannot talk freely about my use of entheogens (although I can talk about it to most of my friends). But I realise that it is either me or them being afraid if I can't talk about it. I may think: what will they think of me if I start rambling about the benefits of a visionary plant from the amazon, and they may think: ooh, drugs are bad, better not get into this. But you can usually get through this fear by just showing you are a pretty normal thinking person that respects others and himself. And broadminded people can only be created if everybody's open about his or her own views and respect other's views (the latter of which I sometimes miss in the psychonautic community, it can be pretty self-rattifying). Just get out there, there's more to people than what meets the eye.

 

[Forkbender]

about the bad trip thing: never had one, had some difficult times, but not really. I usually accept what's coming for me, but it may well be that I never went into the deep dark space within me. I plan on going there soon, though, as I feel strong enough to face it right now. I do agree with all of you that a bad trip can be a transforming experience. I also think that the term bad trip is therefore a misnomer.