"every one is essentially alone" - a discussion

“Ever one is essentially alone”

I read this rather profound statement in a trashy novel many years ago. In fact it was the only thing of any real value that the book had to offer. Over 30,000 words and yet only the above five had any significance for me at the time.

Some have written that loneliness is our greatest motivator beyond survival and self determination. Possibly these two attributes, that being survival and self determination are tempered by this thing called loneliness?

There is a song that has the lyrics that state that loneliness is an important aphrodisiac, that it drives people to seek out others by not just others per se but others that have the ability and inclination to empathise and share similar thoughts, philosophies and enthusiasms.

Every one is essentially alone at it’s deepest meaning talks to me of the duality of our inner selves and our outer reality. How we can never really share what we know or what we are, that due to this inability we as a self centred being stand alone, and fundamentally isolated from others, and if we are lucky enough to find people who can come close to sharing in who we really are our loneliness is mitigated but never neutralised.
In religious terms it could be argued that it is our separation from God [ the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge] or our duality with the universe around us that generates a desire or sufferance which is often referred to as loneliness.

Does this highlight for any one why the Buddha states that all is suffering or motivated by suffering, that sufferance having a primary root in our state of duality? The desire to achieve oneness from a position of separateness?

Is this why people may crave religious enlightenment so that this sufferance can be diminished by an imaginary or real [ depending on perspective] companion that all is shared with? A way to feel the oneness even if a state of delusion [ depending on perspective ] An ability to assuage the intensity of the burden of our inner isolation?

When a person experiences severe depression could it be said that a sense of extreme loneliness i sbeing felt due to amplification of what is pre-existing in all of us? This amplification caused by the persons inability to share their expereinces properly and freely? "No one understands me" type commentary comes to mind.

After all is this posting not a good example of how I wish to share and find persons interested enough to respond, thus mitigating the loneliness factor.

Care to discuss?

 

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The average person's lonliness is nothing in comparison to how it feels to have an understanding of the world and how we should act on it that defeats all others preventing you from connecting with those around you but yet is extremely difficult to convince others of despite its logical value.

 

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Nice run-on sentence!

 

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Quantum,

Welcome to solipsism.

Enjoy.

 

Congratulations Quantum Quack, after reviewing three threads on the Philosophy subject forum I came across yours and yours alone that made me stop and think for reflection.

In answer to all your questions: "Yes!" "Yes!" "Yes!"

It's called "existentional anxiety." Not just being alone in the world, as we all are if we reach that stage in heightened consciousness, but realizing our limitations at a situations - a situation that we cannot solve. Where our limits are maxed out and we can no longer offer a solution to. Where as much as we struggle to think to apply our intellect to find an answer, we cannot. That is existential anxiety. And there is no cure. Read Frankel in the consentration camps of WWII.

 

If you can.

 

Quantum Quack:

My good man, it has been a while. You have been sorely missed! Ah! A symptom of the lonliness we speak of? Well, perhaps!

But anyway, I thought to ask you a question that I thought may provoke an interesting shift in the conversation in order to discuss something related to the concept of Oneness.

It is generally taken as a given in the East - and implied, but denied illogically, in Western traditions - that God is all. That God, by virtue of being omnipresent, is litterally all things, that you and I, the tree, that rock, the New York Yankees, the San Fransisco Zoo, and the Eiffel Tower are all united as God. So in essence, we could say that God's self is all things. That there exists to God nothing but self.

Thus I ask: If there is none but God, is God lonely to be alone so? Moreover, not even just alone, but alone -by necessity- and impossibly to be otherwise?

Feel free if anyone else wants to tackle this question to also put forth their ideas.

Also, consider this: If God is all things, is not he so self-sufficient as to desire nothing at all? And thus the idea of loneliness would not be present?

 

Firstly, sorry for the late response, it appears that my subscription to my own thread some how got dropped.

interesting comments and I shall endeavour to look up Frankel.

My excuse is, as with most people, a limited time based issue.

You pose some interesting speculations [ or requests for speculation] I shall think on it some and post later....

 

Quantum Quack:

Take as much time as you need! I shall eagerly await your response and be glad whenever it comes.

Another thing to ponder:

According to Plato, a proof of the immortality of the soul is that the soul is the animating principle, and the animating principle cannot hold its antithesis at the same time - the dying principle - and thus if the soul is life, it cannot cease to live, otherwise it would not be itself. Consider in this light, whether beinghood could accept loneliness, if loneliness can be construed as the lack of being, whereas beinghood cannot have a lack of itself?

 

This poses another interesting extension.

If God is everything then by necessity he must be looking inwards at himself as there is nothing to look outwards at.....hmmmmm thus God must by these definitions be severely introspective... interestingly if applied to human perceptions it can be concluded that even if we are are said to be looking outwards we are still looking at the universe, in other words looking inwards as God may be doing.

A universe unto itself. No other universe can exist for God to observe but himself. Could it then be said that God must be the master of loneliness and satiates his desire by a form of mental masturbation and belly gazing....please excuse this somewhat silly analogy...

actually this fits in well with other dimensional concepts

 

Quantum Quack:

"If God is everything then by necessity he must be looking inwards at himself as there is nothing to look outwards at.....hmmmmm thus God must by these definitions be severely introspective... interestingly if applied to human perceptions it can be concluded that even if we are are said to be looking outwards we are still looking at the universe, in other words looking inwards as God may be doing."

Yes, this seems rather to be the case supposing such is possible.

"A universe unto itself. No other universe can exist for God to observe but himself. Could it then be said that God must be the master of loneliness and satiates his desire by a form of mental masturbation and belly gazing....please excuse this somewhat silly analogy..."

This is a possibility, yes. That were God to have a role in things outsidde of the passive observer, we might well be construed as fantasies to keep his mind occupied.

"actually this fits in well with other dimensional concepts"

How so?

 

An extremely complex answer would be needed here, but just to tease a little,

"A pixel of nothingness that is self reflective" or something to that effect.

imagine a two dimensional plane where by the surfaces of this plane are looking inwards at each other even though there is zero distance separating the surfaces. Extend this to a zero point or for ease in the imagining, an infinitely small spherical point where by the surface of the sphere is looking inwards...sheesh!!! ha...hmmmmm.....[ btw an infinitely small thing is so instanteously, it takes no time to be what it is etc]

This is part of the zero point hypothesising I have been doing and ties in with my other, let us say, contraversial mind studies.

Any way this is way off topic

 

Quantum Quack:

I think the other thread may well be best to keep to for the discussion of the zero-dimension and other such things. For yes, I would have made a point here I all ready made there, namely, that the lack of distance is union.

 

But Quantum Quack, is survival always encouraged by self-determination, and tempered by loneliness? Survival could be said to be determined by biology, or the environment, for the ant may be determined as it likes to reach a fruit, but this lone factor (it's determinism) may not be great enough to allow it to feed. This is not to say that it's will was any less, merely that determinism may not be the singular factor within survival. Despite determinism, or regardless of states of sociability, life will undoubtedly end at some moment in time for every creature, meaning that survival is dependent upon other factors, namely states of morality.

 

Spectrum:

Did you mean mortality? Or did you mean morality?

 

Thanks for your response Spectrum.
I think possibly it would be of benefit to think of loneliness as the driver for quality of our survival and self determination.

Afterall what point would there be if you were the only self determined survivor?

It has been shown many times I feel that the human mind requires company or a reflection to function at it's most fundamental level, it seems to be well designed for this duality, thus setting the scene for an eternal quest for "union" as Prince James has referred to, an eternal quest that is unable to be completed, thus perpetual movement towards this end keeps everything relentlessly ticking over.

Suffering is an essential aspect of life and living. The suffering of duality [ loneliness] is also, IMO

 

Quantum Quack:

"It has been shown many times I feel that the human mind requires company or a reflection to function at it's most fundamental level, it seems to be well designed for this duality, thus setting the scene for an eternal quest for "union" as Prince James has referred to, an eternal quest that is unable to be completed, thus perpetual movement towards this end keeps everything relentlessly ticking over."

So you postulate that the perpetual movement is caused by the incapacity for one to either quit the search and to reach the end? That one is essentially caught up in the flow, pushed along?

 

hmmmm. in some ways it could be deemed to be the ultimate in frustration.

But yes, correct, IMO perpetual motion is generated by the inability to find perfection in the way of balance, that im-balance is always constant for movement to be also constant.

As suggested by many eastern thinkers, when finding the ultimate truth one achieves perfect balance or "nothingness"

so paradoxically we search for the very thing that would cease our existance.

Thus the truth is illusive because the desire to survive is so strong.

I have mentioned this essential paradox a few times.....

 

So in essence: If life is movement, and perfection is immutable, it is in perfection that we'd cease to live?

 

Really it is a question of value. Some will say that the world is allready perfect in it's imperfection. I tend to agree that the universe has evolved perfectly and this relentless and impossible quest is a part of what makes it so perfect.

After all perpetual motion in itself is perffection is it not.

When one accepts that suffering is necessary for life to go on and manages that suffering to tolerable limits one can see the perfection of the whole system of sufference and relief of sufference and how imbalance if managed well and enjoyed even,..... allows life to see successs and purpose of that sufference.

So to me the universe and all within it are already perfect [ perfectly imperfect] because I have accepted the need for sufference [ pain] and it's opposite twin, relief of sufference [ pleasure ]