Loneliness

Loneliness can have many causes. But they all boil down to one fact: unrealized potential.

There is a person you can be in the context of a relationship with another person that you simply cannot realize in isolation. And I don't mean a romantic relationship, necessarily, although a positive romantic relationship is often foremost on people's minds, because it provides the broadest context for the expression of oneself. What I'm saying is that we're only as much of ourselves as other people allow us to be. You might be witty, kind, affectionate, sensual, passionate, poetic--whatever the qualities you most like about yourself. But without another person who can appreciate those qualities in you, they might as well not exist. You are not funny if there's no one around who gets your sense of humor. You're not an ardent lover if there's no one around who inspires you sexually or returns your interest. You're not intelligent if there's no one who understands what you're talking about. And that's real pain of loneliness: there's a person you could be, but can't. That unrealized potential is an internal pressure that can become agonizing.

This is also why such recommended sops as volunteering don't work for many. If you want to realize yourself as a physically tender, passionate person, working with the homeless or the elderly or abused animals provides no context for that. You do your good work and then you go home alone. And still you are no the person your soul is screaming for you to be.

That's not a pain you can cover up or talk yourself out of. As someone else said, you can't talk yourself out of being hungry. Eventually, you're going to die from it. Loneliness is the same...it just takes a hundred times longer. But you feel your dying (I use that possessive correctly in this context) all the same. Every goddamn day.

I can't offer a cure for loneliness. But what I can share with you is my conviction, my direct experience, that THIS IS NOT ALL THAT THERE IS. We exist within a transcendental framework of meaning that provides context for your sufferings. There is a cause and a purpose to your loneliness that has nothing to do with who you are now but is entirely about what your true, multi-dimensional self desires you to become. We are each of us musical instruments that the Goddess is growing in her Garden of Time, instruments that sound a note crucial for the universal symphony she is composing. Try to remember that! THERE IS A POINT TO YOUR PAIN. IT'S YOUR SERVICE TO HER. If you can just try to believe that, and then go even further and then gladly offer your suffering up as a sacrifice of love, it'll become easier to bear. The hard truth is that that is all many of us can hope for. But the chance to say YES to it all is a call to greatness. Heed it.