I have been pondering this question since the theme of loneliness was raised on a CBC radio program recently. It would seem, by their findings, that really everyone is lonely. It doesn't matter if you have a family, a partner, a lover, the world's best circle of friends, or if you're lucky enough to live 24/7 on the Cheers set where everyone knows your name. You are at times going to feel...lonely.
This is part of our human condition. I spend a lot of time alone. I'm single and have no family and often my friends are MIA. I still think I have it pretty good. Not a single week goes by when I don't have coffee with at least one good friend. I work with other people in a support capacity. I am very involved with others despite being single and childless. I also stay in touch with friends by email and on Skype and every Sunday there is church too.
It isn't all satisfactory. I would love it if my friends and we had more time for each other. Notice I didn't write "If they had more time for me." I would likely have as many or more good excuses as many of my friends for not being in touch more often. There simply isn't enough time or I am too tired or both. Such is the common malaise of our frenzied post modern times. I would like to have more contact with people at church and see if some sense of real community could develop. But I also have to ask myself how much time and energy I could commit since it isn't going to happen by itself. It would be lovely to see something more organic and Spirit-directed grow but there has to be a kind of collective availability for this to happen and at my modest Anglican parish anyway it isn't going to happen.
I try to stay open to others throughout my day. I don't carry electronic devices with me, outside of an old style cell phone which is for work only, though I also use it as a watch. Without the distraction of music from an I-pod, or talking on my phone, or scrolling my I-phone for the Internet or to play computer games while I'm stepping on dog shit on the sidewalk I tend to notice people a lot. Sometimes eye-contact is made. Sometimes a complete stranger will smile and say hi or I will. Occasionally we might even stop to chat a bit.
It isn't always friendly. I have been known to take a strip off of discourteous and careless drivers or to openly rebuke idiot cyclists and skateboarders who won't get off the sidewalk. But it's still contact and this still connects us and somehow humanizes us a little. If nothing else it reminds everyone that we are not here alone.
There is a loneliness that comes from boredom. In my case, boredom only becomes an issue if I happen to be procrastinating or neglecting a duty, responsibility or obligation. Or if I'm simply not getting something done when I should be doing it. So the boredom is really a kind of emotional implosion that comes from not being proactive. The sense of inner dissatisfaction quickly morphs into a kind of loneliness. A personal void has been created and now there is this nagging urge to somehow fill it with anything that won't fit.
This is not to say that we do not need others. We all need one another. We are a social species. We cannot exist without the support and input of others. This is an indelible feature of our humanity. But it does not necessarily cure or prevent loneliness which is an equally indelible aspect of our human beingness.
I believe that we have a kind of inner restlessness inside of us that only comes to rest when we find our rest in God. If you happen to be agnostic or atheist then still try to imagine a sense of something larger and far greater than ourselves to which you must direct all your attention. If you don't believe in God then perhaps visualize a kind of universal love and goodness. You don't have to believe it exists. Just pretend it exists. My wager is that because it really does exist, this universal love and goodness, then our pretending that it is real will also awaken in us a response to its presence.
Will this cure our loneliness? Not necessarily. But it will summon forth in us a sense of our part in the universe and of our connection to all living beings. Still feeling lonely? Well, don't let that worry you. So does everyone else. We are all together in our loneliness. Try thinking of this for a while. Now do you feel better?
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