Imagine if an Alien came to Earth and saw these tribes? It's something I poked at in my book Paradox:
“On the same planet, with the same species, within a thousand miles from each other, heck sometimes just a few miles, you have people flying to the moon, zipping around in electric cars, having hot food or frozen ice cream delivered from a restaurant by a drone…and then we have people running around in loincloths with sharpened sticks, eating rats cooked over wood fires, living in huts, nearly prehistoric.”
“God, I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Kira laughed. “What would an alien species visiting us think?”
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” -- Carl Jung
To me, this is really the definitive and maybe only definition of loneliness, and it persists even with all this connectivity, which continually spins me. It's just so damned hard to sort through all of it to find connection.
I like you enjoy my alone time. The Paradox of social media separating people vs bring people together is the reason we can't talk to each other anymore. We including myself have cultivated are own bubbles of like minded people with the same interests and opinions. I believe this is the reason we are having so a hard time talking with others in real time who have different views ,perspectives and interests. I don't know what we do about but it is a problem. I think many of us have the fantasy of living on an almost deserted island, I wonder what the reality would actually be like.
I agree - it's a huge issue. We badly need for people to accept that there is nuance in the world, and that if someone disagrees with us, they're not automatically our enemy or evil or whatever. How to get there? I'm thinking places like this (Substack) are a good step in the right direction.
I for one can’t function without solitude. I can and do socialize, but on my own terms and in my own way. It’s taken me a while to figure this out, but now that I’ve realized what my own needs are, I’m a much happier and more creative.
There are a lot of bad things about social media, to be sure, but for me it’s the perfect way to socialize because I can turn it off when I’m getting overwhelmed. Although, I think I may adopt the Sentinalese approach and start lobbing spears at people when I’m done with a conversation irl😂Seems to be highly effective.
That line about two people sitting beside each other on a couch immediately reminded me of a passage from 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"
Social isolation - whether pleasant or unpleasant - seems to reach farther back than the internet age.
Popular music overwhelmingly tends to use "lonely" in terms of sadness, with the other meaning largely not considered. But there have been many songs about islands, so somebody gets the other one in different words. Sam Cooke even recorded a song called "Lonely Island".
I think all of us, no matter how otherwise extroverted, need at least some alone downtime here and there. I'm quite a social person but I definitely have plenty of moments where I'd rather be by myself.
I think I'm social on my own terms. I need to be able to turn it off whenever I need to, and I can't do that with in-person interactions and stuff like that.
I exercise my loneliness while driving back and forth from work and consider that the best time to think. Some of the best ideas have come during that time, so I greatly cherish the loneliness.
Since the post talks about India, as per Hinduism, a person is supposed to move to the loneliness stage in the second half of life.
In Hinduism, human life is believed to comprise four stages. These are called "ashramas" and every person should ideally go through each of these stages and the ancient people saw value in an isolated life as we grow older
The First Ashrama: "Brahmacharya" or the Student Stage
The Second Ashrama: "Grihastha" or the Householder Stage
The Third Ashrama: "Vanaprastha" or the Hermit Stage
The Fourth Ashrama: "Sannyasa" or the Wandering Ascetic Stage
Imagine if an Alien came to Earth and saw these tribes? It's something I poked at in my book Paradox:
“On the same planet, with the same species, within a thousand miles from each other, heck sometimes just a few miles, you have people flying to the moon, zipping around in electric cars, having hot food or frozen ice cream delivered from a restaurant by a drone…and then we have people running around in loincloths with sharpened sticks, eating rats cooked over wood fires, living in huts, nearly prehistoric.”
“God, I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Kira laughed. “What would an alien species visiting us think?”
I totally get it: beata solitudo, sola beatitudo.
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” -- Carl Jung
To me, this is really the definitive and maybe only definition of loneliness, and it persists even with all this connectivity, which continually spins me. It's just so damned hard to sort through all of it to find connection.
I wrote about this awhile back, in the context of Eleanor Rigby, if it's Of Interest... https://www.beatlesabbey.com/p/the-sacred-ordinary-st-peters-church
Yes, 100% appropriate! Thanks for sharing this.
Agreed
I like you enjoy my alone time. The Paradox of social media separating people vs bring people together is the reason we can't talk to each other anymore. We including myself have cultivated are own bubbles of like minded people with the same interests and opinions. I believe this is the reason we are having so a hard time talking with others in real time who have different views ,perspectives and interests. I don't know what we do about but it is a problem. I think many of us have the fantasy of living on an almost deserted island, I wonder what the reality would actually be like.
I agree - it's a huge issue. We badly need for people to accept that there is nuance in the world, and that if someone disagrees with us, they're not automatically our enemy or evil or whatever. How to get there? I'm thinking places like this (Substack) are a good step in the right direction.
Absolutely 💯 I love that feature.
I for one can’t function without solitude. I can and do socialize, but on my own terms and in my own way. It’s taken me a while to figure this out, but now that I’ve realized what my own needs are, I’m a much happier and more creative.
There are a lot of bad things about social media, to be sure, but for me it’s the perfect way to socialize because I can turn it off when I’m getting overwhelmed. Although, I think I may adopt the Sentinalese approach and start lobbing spears at people when I’m done with a conversation irl😂Seems to be highly effective.
"Do not disturb" mode on your phone is like the modern/socially acceptable version of lobbing spears, I think. "Sorry, voice mail for you!"
That line about two people sitting beside each other on a couch immediately reminded me of a passage from 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!"
Social isolation - whether pleasant or unpleasant - seems to reach farther back than the internet age.
Oh yes, I'd imagine it reaches all the way back to our earliest attempts at society. I bet it was day one.
Popular music overwhelmingly tends to use "lonely" in terms of sadness, with the other meaning largely not considered. But there have been many songs about islands, so somebody gets the other one in different words. Sam Cooke even recorded a song called "Lonely Island".
Not to mention the Andy Samberg group!
I think all of us, no matter how otherwise extroverted, need at least some alone downtime here and there. I'm quite a social person but I definitely have plenty of moments where I'd rather be by myself.
I think I'm social on my own terms. I need to be able to turn it off whenever I need to, and I can't do that with in-person interactions and stuff like that.
I will call the below the real loneliness (what do you think?)
Rare Footage Shows the Last Surviving Member of an Uncontacted Amazon Tribe
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rare-footage-shows-last-surviving-member-uncontacted-amazon-tribe-180969728/
I exercise my loneliness while driving back and forth from work and consider that the best time to think. Some of the best ideas have come during that time, so I greatly cherish the loneliness.
Since the post talks about India, as per Hinduism, a person is supposed to move to the loneliness stage in the second half of life.
In Hinduism, human life is believed to comprise four stages. These are called "ashramas" and every person should ideally go through each of these stages and the ancient people saw value in an isolated life as we grow older
The First Ashrama: "Brahmacharya" or the Student Stage
The Second Ashrama: "Grihastha" or the Householder Stage
The Third Ashrama: "Vanaprastha" or the Hermit Stage
The Fourth Ashrama: "Sannyasa" or the Wandering Ascetic Stage
More here:
https://www.learnreligions.com/stages-of-life-in-hinduism-1770068
Driving is an amazing time to think.
Here is something I just read from one of my favorite writers on substack:
https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/third-chair?selection=8e664958-ca49-4413-932c-8cdcc1f5242e#