Loneliness…

01/18/2011

Loneliness comes in 3 categories. I am sure there are googols of research dwelling into the length and breadth of the psychological and philosophical attributes surrounding the feeling of loneliness. I Am just talking here of the ways people react to the feeling of loneliness. And I do believe that the path we take is really a function of how we learnt to cope with loneliness.

Before I launch into this not so well rounded categorization of loneliness, I would like to add, as a prelude, that I talk here of loneliness as represented by the feeling of not being included or not belonging in the midst of circumstances. Picture yourself as a literature major sitting in a lecture for particle physics. There is no one around you who can speak your language (or you theirs), no one understands you quite the way you have grasped the soul of Dickens and Shakespeare and you are screaming for life with no one responding to you. That to my mind is the true feeling of loneliness irrespective of whether you are dying alone or it is just your broken heart making you lonely; the variables may change but the sadness, emptiness and claustrophobia are pretty much the same.

[ I swear I am not feeling particularly surrounded by people who understand me but that was the least pathetic simulation of loneliness I could come up with. I guess my poetic inclinations are rather withered! ]

Category 1 comprises of the majority people who take their loneliness and beat the shit out of it in a vicious self destructive cycle of brooding and scrutiny. Most of these are men (and sometimes women) who, the first time they were lonely [ if memory can trace back ], did not have much to occupy their mind and the best use of the emptiness was to find the root causes of their loneliness and break it down to particles, all the while increasing the depression quotient. Such people generally tend to become victims of chronic depression because the analysis tends to become a part of their everyday lives. And life is not really the joyous ride it is made up to be; because whichever way you go, you more or less always end up in a place wondering if you would have been somewhere else as this was definitely not what you had dreamed about.

Category 2 is the second largest fraction of people; compared to Cat 1 they are small but compared to the third class, they are infinitely large. These people are almost equally self destructive but in a radically opposite exhibition. They tend to get wasted! Men will drink or smoke whatever they can lay their hands on, go party and if luck will have it, end up with equally lonely women with no memory of what her name was next morning. Women on the other hand do the same and / or will go shopping to test the limits of their credit cards and bank balances. The outcome is almost always something you regret later and this puts you through a similar landscape of depression and self pity. Generally coming out of people who are surrounded in the beginning by groups of similar nature, comprising of individuals of rather shallow outlook where drinking and shopping form recreation. Maybe sometimes being shallow is good!

The third category is the tiniest fraction of people who actually move on rather quickly. They touch on Cat 1 or Cat 2 behavior and then turn to newer ventures in life. They move over rather fast since they have evolved from Cat 1 and 2 phases in life to get to the next level of self realization. The realization that life will throw its sad moments at you and there is nothing that you or any higher power can do about it. So we may as well just move on than either waste time in brooding or wasting money on shallow recreation.

Sounds quite like the sermon but I have learnt that it is easier said than done. There are two devils and one angel and the force that pulls you back towards a perspective of gloom or frivolousness is incredible when you are surrounded by incredibly dense stupidity or incredibly alien company. Personally, I cook and as a side effect, I eat and the weight keeps piling on and off!

Ending with a song… Personally I think this is a Category 1 song but hoping it will touch the note perfectly – a Celine Dion cover of an Eric Carmen original.