Loneliness like most other intense feelings can only be described inadequately. Words are always one step short of conveying the depth of what is felt, and how it effects the person that we are. What is loneliness? if I dare ask - taking up the impossible challenge. I can best start by talking of when it is most likely to be experienced - loneliness is a serious disconnect with the outside world, this disconnect may be self-imposed or brought upon by circumstance. It is the inability to operate at the same level as those around you; you feel your feelings, emotions, experiences are not being understood by others in their true sense or magnitude which leads to a feeling of alienation.
Loneliness of the heart is another thing altogether, it is an ache for that person with whom you are able to bare yourself completely and absolutely - we desperately want to be understood, we want our feelings and emotions validated by another, we want recognition by another - for it is by these acts of the other person that we find our own identity. A child till he's about a year or so has so sense of a 'self', he cannot differentiate between himself and the world that he sees. It is only after he's more than a year old that he begins to get a knowledge of his separate identity vis a vis others around him. So others are crucial in being 'who we are', we have to have significant others in our life who give us a 'definition' of ourselves to us. We come to know ourselves better by how others respond and react to us. Now, if we do not have a person close to us - close enough to reflect our passions, feelings, emotions, with whom we can be completely at ease, with whom we find a reassurance of our self - we become lonely at heart. It's like not having a reflection to look at, not being able to straighten our faces in the mirror. And this makes us uneasy and awkward especially in public.
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