The fear of being alone

[SangpourPlaisir]

How strange it is to find yourself with "free time". This time that is really yours--in which no self-imposed duty or obligation encumbers you. "Free" time it sounds so liberating and yet we dread it. Is it true that man with all his liberties fears his freedom? We dread this freedom so much that we even pay others to take it away from us. We dread that "free" time in which we are truly by ourselves; when nothing that appeases what we call "boredom" seems appealing. And that "boredom" is a guise of that undefineable fear to be alone.This fear should not be confused with the fear of being abondoned (which leads to intimacy issues, but that is another topic) nor should it be confused with the fear of not finding a compatible "soul" (which is subsequently caused by one's own feeling of inadequacy).It is fear of being alone with nothing to "fill" that time, neither through thought nor act. It is a time in which we are most self-aware. That time truly exemplifies our existance and yet we are scared of this awareness. The awareness of just your Self in this world.

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[WeDon'tFightFair.]

I never thought about it like that. That's interesting.

[Waking Life]

Since when do we dread free time?

[deanmono]

ive been chewing on this "free time/fear of being alone" thing for a while too...
we can only truly understand ourselves, and sometimes thats hard enough. so to be able to coupe with true freedom, we must not fear being alone. we all leave life, or this perspective of it alone. we go off into the darkness that is death alone. so to be truly comfortable, we must be strong in the fact that we can be alone.

but alas, i wish my girlfriend would come home from work!

[Rusha]

Sounds like meditation to me. I try to do it for 20 minutes a day twice a day. Good stuff, one of my favorite parts of the day.

[Autentique]

I actually love being alone. I've been alone all weekend and it feels like bliss.

[thefreedomclub]

I'm a bit confused about your definition of "understand", deanmono. The self is one of the most complicated things known to us.

Autentique - You may have isolated yourself from your friends, but were you truly alone? Surely you surrounded yourself with external stimuli.

BloodForPleasure - I had always assumed that boredom was a function of our acute awareness of our own mortality.

It also seems probable that our desire to find a mate caused the all-pervading sense of inadequacy, not the other way around.

[Autentique]

This weekend I read, I did homework. Only today I went out for a walk. I also did meditation. I ate. I spent time thinking. I took pictures. I slept. I washed my hair.. just random things and well spent some time here.
If you mean if I sat the whole weekend staring at the wall.. no, but but I didnt have any interaction with people except for today and well when my boyfriend calls at night.

[deanmono]

I'm a bit confused about your definition of "understand", deanmono. The self is one of the most complicated things known to us.
well, just have control of your brain. its harder said than done, ofcourse, but definatly not impossible. for example, buddha, jesus, anyone who could spend a year isolated in the jungle or forest, the i am, the enlightened ones, christopher mccandless.

"do not pay attention to world events, they are all orchestrated to make you pay attention to them. the struggle you should pay attention to is on a personal level."
(http://www.dedroidify.com/toptoptop.htm)

[mortes]

My favorite time of the day is when I'm alone. What you describe is the average human. They work because they hate the idea of a free time period of infinite expansion. It's bullshit, but to each there own.

[deviate]

I think Im a true loner. I have a lot of friends, totally extroverted, but I will just disappear. I've always looked in myself to find answers and I often wander as far into nature as I can alone and just think. I've been doing it for a long time, and for all I know have driven myself mad. But hey I guess maternal abandonement will do that to a person. Without a doubt, as a human I have grown alone. My spirit and mind have grown alone.

I really do yearn for someone though. But even with that I resist it a lot of the time. The people around me seem to be around others for one reason: distraction from the inevitable. Its like a chronic drug user (myself). But I guess when it comes to human connection I prefer intense, powerful experiences that take me awhile to recover from and leave me numb for years.

[SangpourPlaisir]

well, just have control of your brain. its harder said than done, ofcourse, but definatly not impossible.

"do not pay attention to world events, they are all orchestrated to make you pay attention to them. the struggle you should pay attention to is on a personal level."
(http://www.dedroidify.com/toptoptop.htm)
It's neat that everyone got something different from what I proposed. D thanks for the quote, this is complimentary to what I was trying to say.

Some people misconstrued. Of course there's nothing wrong with being alone and it's actually unhealthy to fear such a thing. That's what leads people into bad relationships, etc...

What I was saying, which I hope to make clearer, is how do you handle that time when it's just you and your brain/mind. I mean, not that I necessarily believe in mind/body dualism. But that is another subject of it's own... I know you can pick up a book and read, mastubate, go online, have a a conversation with yourself, the list is infinite of things one can do by oneself. But what I was referring to is that time when you're not having some orgasmic thought spasm and all you're left is with an awareness of your self. Subsequently the fear of being alone. But even when one is alone you have something you're doing or thinking of doing or worrying about doing.

[Waking Life]

Thats crazy talk. You're not really making much sense.

Subsequent fear. Where is the connection there?

[SangpourPlaisir]

I didn't expect this to resonnate with everyone. :P

[Waking Life]

Yeah yeah yeah .....


Explain where the fear enters into it.

[SangpourPlaisir]

You're funny. :)

[Waking Life]

Maybe we'll save it for another time?

[SangpourPlaisir]

I though waking life was a fantastic movie, one of my favorites really but Amelie is my favorite.

So how are you doing today?

[scratcho]

I was an only child and even tho my friends meant a lot to me in my teens and early 20s,I have disappeared from family and friends,some for 25-45 years.Some forever.I like my own company and I could probably entertain myself if I was secluded ,for any length of time.I enjoy visiting and having some laughs with people,but frankly,I could do without it.I don't ever feel panicked when alone.http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/humm.gif

[Waking Life]

I though waking life was a fantastic movie, one of my favorites really but Amelie is my favorite.

So how are you doing today?
I tried to watch Amelie once but I wasn't in the mood for it and turned it off. I'm doing fine today. A new radiohead album was released today. Events like that take the stress off of working, and maybe even the fear of being alone.

[SangpourPlaisir]

I tried to watch Amelie once but I wasn't in the mood for it and turned it off. I'm doing fine today. A new radiohead album was released today. Events like that take the stress off of working, and maybe even the fear of being alone.

Ahahahaha that made me laugh out loud that was fantastic. I pretty much stopped listening to Radiohead after Ok Computer I didn't like Kid A and after the abomination of Amnesiac I pretty much stopped listening to them. But I will give it alisten

[ginkgo]

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 (http://www.phifoundation.org/enlightenment.html), 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.

[Linaea]

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

[praxiskepsis]

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

Cheers.

[Any Color You Like]

How strange it is to find yourself with "free time". This time that is really yours--in which no self-imposed duty or obligation encumbers you. "Free" time it sounds so liberating and yet we dread it. Is it true that man with all his liberties fears his freedom? We dread this freedom so much that we even pay others to take it away from us. We dread that "free" time in which we are truly by ourselves; when nothing that appeases what we call "boredom" seems appealing. And that "boredom" is a guise of that undefineable fear to be alone.This fear should not be confused with the fear of being abondoned (which leads to intimacy issues, but that is another topic) nor should it be confused with the fear of not finding a compatible "soul" (which is subsequently caused by one's own feeling of inadequacy).It is fear of being alone with nothing to "fill" that time, neither through thought nor act. It is a time in which we are most self-aware. That time truly exemplifies our existance and yet we are scared of this awareness. The awareness of just your Self in this world.Thank you, you just entirely described what I feel.

[Arieldt]

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.

[praxiskepsis]

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

[the outsider]

How strange it is to find yourself with "free time". This time that is really yours--in which no self-imposed duty or obligation encumbers you. "Free" time it sounds so liberating and yet we dread it. Is it true that man with all his liberties fears his freedom? We dread this freedom so much that we even pay others to take it away from us. We dread that "free" time in which we are truly by ourselves; when nothing that appeases what we call "boredom" seems appealing. And that "boredom" is a guise of that undefineable fear to be alone.This fear should not be confused with the fear of being abondoned (which leads to intimacy issues, but that is another topic) nor should it be confused with the fear of not finding a compatible "soul" (which is subsequently caused by one's own feeling of inadequacy).It is fear of being alone with nothing to "fill" that time, neither through thought nor act. It is a time in which we are most self-aware. That time truly exemplifies our existance and yet we are scared of this awareness. The awareness of just your Self in this world.

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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.

[praxiskepsis]

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!!!

[the outsider]

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.

[StayLoose1011]

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.

[crimsonbegonias]

It is fear of being alone with nothing to "fill" that time, neither through thought nor act. It is a time in which we are most self-aware.
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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?