The fear of being alone

This is like saying that people love vanilla ice cream or they love chocolate ice cream. People are very different. I have read a lot and never have enough time to do all the reading I want. The feeling of being alone is from not being connected to yourself. Socrates did not say "Know others." He said "Know thyself."

Here is a story about connecting to your true self. There was a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. It felt all alone being surrounded by ocean with no other land around. But then it began to look inside and it realized that it was not a tiny island but the tip of a huge mountain. Then it looked further within and saw that it was really this big ball of land with a thin film of ocean on top of it and it was one with all the other islands and continents.

This website, Finding Happiness in an Unhappy World, has more about finding your true self with information from top psychologists and cosmology. Sigmund Freud talked about a feeling that was the opposite of being alone. He described it as feeling like you are one with the universe.

 

I wonder...Are we ever NOT alone?

You see, even when we are in the presence of others, most of our thoughts and feelings are kept secret, hidden, and inevitably separate from those we are with. Even our closest friends will never know the true and whole US. Do you agree?

I have always felt that utterly human sense of loneliness--that recognition that no matter how hard I try any form of communication will be inevitably flawed and incapable of being truly understood. For how can any two people know that their understandings of the definitions, connotations, and cultural differences involved in any one word are exactly the same. Think about it.

I know that any sense of connection between another person sparks something deep inside--but I can't name what that might be. Humans are such interesting creatures

 

SPP, tell me about the fear of abandonment and intimacy issues. I'd like to disscuss it with you.

Cheers.

 

Thank you, you just entirely described what I feel.

 

That's interesting--I recently read the Grand Inquisitor segment of The Brothers Karamazov. I'll paraphrase part of the Inquisitor's arguement: humans will do anything to avoid freedom, whether it be in the form of higher knowledge or the ability to make their own decisions. Freedom is utterly terrifying, and people would much rather be given "bread" (survival) over freedom. I thought about this for a while; survival is the most basic, simple principle if you take it at face value: the goal of survival is simply "Do whatever you need to in order to not die."
I wonder whether we interact with others and look for tasks as a way to pursue survival. Therefore by focusing on survival, we can avoid thinking about the much more frightening concept of freedom, of the absense of being preoccupied with 'stuff' to do.
Just an interesting connection--not sure if it made sense.

 

I wish SangPourPlaisir came back on this thread. What an intelligent babe!

 

I believe that I have read this exact passage in a book before but I can't quite remember which. I think it was a work by Colin Wilson or of a professional analytical philosopher.

 

She's a fraud!!!

 

I am absolutely sure of it, though i can't quite pinpoint from which book it was plagarised. Regardless, it is an interesting idea that most people would not have come across otherwise.

 

Free time and aloneness are both very scary. I know what you mean. In a sense, we are born alone and we die alone. But, on the other hand, I believe that all sentient beings are connected fundamentally. If you dwell on loneliness, you will feel alone. I've been there, for a long time. Now, I don't strive for connections so much, and what do you know, they fall into my lap all the time. I don't always feel connected when I want to, but if I just have faith, I will undoubtedly find myself feeling close to someone in due time. It's true that we will always be alone, but there are moments of intimacy, moments of comfort... you just have to let them come to you.

 

I personally love "free" time, God forbid I ever actually have any, but I can't really classify true "free time" as being without thought...as I presumed free time was composed of nothing but that. I dunno, I really like to just sit down and think for a while, and I find that's when I'm most self aware...does that still classify as free time in the way you meant?

 

Overcome this fear
being alone is the best place to be
believe me
focus on yourself but help others
you don't need anyone but you
only you can make you stronger and nobody else

 

I don't fear "free time", nor being by myself.

 

I agree. Even those that claim to enjoy being alone would rather fill their entire day with all kinds of trivial activities than be completely alone with themselves. It can drive one mad if their awareness sharpens to a point.

Excellent question. I would have to contemplate that more. But i would say yes. We would rather desperately cling to anything that gives us some sense of meaning, purpose, identity, etc even if it causes us misery than to be free from it all. Even our suffering gives us some sense of identity. That "I" exist.

 

as an infant, uderly dependent on its mothers milk (pun intended), the fear of being alone, is a logical survival instinct.
when one has reasonable confidence, and reasonable reason to have that confidence, that one is capable of providing for their own requirements for survival,
it then becomes one only perhaps for the survival of the species, but until once again one becomes helpless as sometimes happens, in the extremity of old age,
it is no longer entirely logical, nor for that matter, universal.

i do not know what a "trivial" activity is. if that is meant as a reference to any not directly connected with survival, permit me to point out, that the real roots of gratification,
are creating and exploring. even money is potentially a tool with which to gain access to other tools, with which to create, and even sex, at least up to a point, is something to explore, though with respect to the latter, one soon discovers there are limits to the capabilities of the physical form.

imagination gives us the capacity perceive our existence.
it is not a mere claim, that i find life more enjoyable when not robbed of creatively exploring my own imaginative and creative thoughts,
and solving the methodologies of communicating them visually.

i do, or at least have the capacity, to enjoy the company of other living organisms. but i certainly have no emotional dependence on constant interruption.

i would call 'free time' the only time you really can really 'think'.
at least it is for me.

alone i can figure out almost anything eventually,
but under stress of having to do so for others,
simple repetitive tasks are about all i can count upon being able.

freedom is feared by those who have been taught to shun their imagination,
or leave it behind as a toy from childhood.
this is far from universal, as the capacity also exists to embrace creating, as inherent to our inner most nature.

 

I happen to be one of those that actually relish the free time. I actually envy those who have a career and now have this incredible free time to do whatever with. I thought things would slow down for me too and I could really get to work on my book. But no, instead I have to take care of this and take care of that, and we didn't file 2018 taxes so I have to scramble to dig up all our tax papers and receipts and get busy doing that crap, then my wife suddenly feels like we have to prepare food and take it out to feed the homeless people, and then the kitchen sink gets clogged somewhere between the handles and the spout, and... Auuuuugghhh!!! HOW COME I AM THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT FREE TIME!!!

But the OP does represent an original existential fear. Separate all the fears of getting COVID-19, of losing a job, or having your company even close down, or how you are going to pay your bills, and you are left with freedom and facing your self. I imagine that those who have a tendency towards more introversion are not so fearful, and are actually relishing this time alone-----but is it because they have all the diversions already primed and ready to avoid facing themselves, or is it because they actually enjoy the time alone?

I have done a number of vision quests, and have supported others on their vision quests. I am talking about real vision quests, not something you read about in a book and then go spend an afternoon in nature by your self. I am talking about one that you do with an actual Native American medicine man, where you begin with 2 rounds in a sweat lodge, and then sit for days on a mountain without any food or water, holding a sacred pipe in an altar that you made your self with 420-some tobacco ties, and sage that you gathered, while people sit down in the valley below and pray for you, all of which is concluded by the last two rounds of the sweat lodge. Doing a vision quest in this manner is incredibly difficult, and yet it is amazing what happens. Time on the one hand goes on forever and 4 days seems like an eternity. Yet on the other hand those 4 days are over in a heartbeat. Time has no relevance, yet time is everything, in an obsessive manner, on that vision quest.On the vision quest you face yourself, you face the universe, you have complete freedom, after all, at any time you could walk down the hill and make up some excuse as to why you can't do it---

"I'm sorry, I can't do it. I'm on my moon."

What?! You can't be on your moon. Only women can be on their moon!"

"I know isn't it weird?"

"Being on your moon means you are menstruating."

"I know. Why did this happen? Spirit must have done this to me!"

"No-----spirit doesn't do this kind of thing. You should get back up on the hill."

"I know, its so strange why would it do this to me? A male, yet now I am having my period and I don't even have any pads, I mean, what kind of weird magic..."

"This is why we don't want white people to do this..."

OK----that is purely fictional. I never did that, seriously! I have stuck out every vision quest to the end. But in truth, you do have the freedom to get up and walk down the hill. The whole thing is between you and spirit. But if you stick it out, it is incredible--not something you can really put in words, but it is incredible. If you did walk down the hill, everyone would know it, and the medicine man would probably not invite you to participate in such things again, and he would explain to you about how what you do is between you and spirit and the consequences of your choice are very very real.

But what is it that people fear? Are we so programmed that we define who we are based on our job? Then without the job, we are lost, and then we have nothing but our true selves to confront, which is awkward because we are so alienated, we have nothing to say or do; no way to relate.

Maybe there is something to that, just as Freud feared the subconscious and even warned Jung not to 'go there.' After all, when confronting the self, we are faced with all our shortcomings, all our faults, all those things you tried so hard to repress----like that time when you were 14 years old, and your sister didn't wear a bra, and all you could think about for a good hour was your sister's nipples under her shirt. (Hey! We are only human, and the only other nipples you saw up till then, once you started noticing boobs and nipples, were the ones in your dad's stash of Playboy and Penthouse in his desk drawer that you had a habit of sneaking into. It's ok!) (Ok, this is obviously from the perspective of those of us who were born before the age of the internet, but, you know...)

Or is it the freedom we are afraid of? Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, along with Husserl (because apparently existentialism was born from the womb of an indigenous South American woman with the common belief there that a successful child requires the sperm of multiple fathers. And by the way, does it show that I've been drinking and took an opiate pain killer because my back was killing me after working several hours on replacing the kitchen sink?) said that people are afraid of the responsibility of freedom and this is why they allow others, such as preachers and charismatic leaders, to take over their freedom.

An authentic person takes responsibility for him or her self. An authentic person has confronted him or her self, with all his or her shortcomings, and has accepted all that he or she is. (Its ok that you were sneaking peaks into the woman's showers trying to catch a glimpse of naked women, you were curious at 15 years old... OK, you were curious at 32, but, whatever...!) If this time of self quarantine presents you with an existential struggle, this is probably the universe presenting you with the opportunity to face yourself, and become an authentic individual. Or to face that fear of freedom, because that too is part of becoming an authentic individual---to take responsibility for your freedom rather than to hand it to someone else. Becoming an authentic person is to borrow from Kierkegaard, Jung would have referred to it as becoming individuated. Of course such comments of becoming authentic or individuated are less directed at the one who started this thread, as that person, by recognizing the problem, is perhaps further down the path of individuation than anyone whose ego, trying to shirk away from growth, quickly dismissed the problem.