“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the starless sky, you seek refuge in the company of the moon. In the blinding brightness of the day, your shadow’s constant stalking makes you feel loved. The distant bird’s call might make your head turn, and the rustling of the dry leaves as you walk over them might make you feel grateful as it is a nature’s acknowledgement of your existence. The many shades of loneliness can be fantasized and imagined to great many desperate extents, yet there are a few shades of that very feeling of solitary abandonment which are hard-hitting and deep.

To understand loneliness, one has to experience good company, just like if one has to appreciate joy, he has to be stung by the wasp of sorrows. To know the true value of one thing, one has to lose it for at least a brief period of time, and that has been the way of life ever since humanity evolved into the unfairly absurd self-consciousness.

And to further add to the absurdity of our existence, the branches of loneliness vary from person to person, for some it is seasonal, and for others it becomes a cancerous sickness with an almost impossible probability to get away from. The psychological aspect of loneliness is far more technical and asks for a well researched expert to talk about it, but there are other aspects which can be explored too, for one, the aesthetic aspect, the philosophical aspect, and most importantly, the human aspect.

To generally romanticize the concept of loneliness is something beyond merely artistic, and it demands for something more than creativity, loneliness is and will remain to be the ill human condition which makes sure to leave behind pangs of life changing experiences and enlightenments which you will be forced to remember for a long time to come. But then again it is something equally necessary, and important.

The realization of loneliness is not always the fault of others, you are not lonely only when you are alone, and if you are feeling lonely in your own company, it will be the first one in the list of things you will have to work on for your own betterment.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

Loneliness is not always about having no one around you, it is also about having people around you yet not belonging, it is about having people to talk to yet not being able to, it is craving for someone’s company that you’ll never have but still sitting in the darkness and hoping the next sunrise might bring some actual light into your life. Oddly, it is not always about not having a shoulder to lean on to, it is also about having had a shoulder to lean on to yet not have the chance of doing the same anymore, loneliness is not just about longing to hold someone’s hand as you walk, knowing you are safe in their presence, loneliness is in having to live the memory of that long gone past and still hoping to get it back once more.

Fortunately loneliness and sadness always don’t walk hand in hand, sometimes it just grips you with an unfathomable fear, of what and how your life will end up amid the darkness of your loneliness, sometimes you just sit there in silence reflecting on how, despite the unfortunate curse of not having anyone to talk to, you have survived and walked out of it alive, you might even take pride in your strength.

Desiring company is as humane, and natural as breathing air, yet the abnormality of being able to find comfort in your own company is a power that is unmatched. Wanting to be with someone who makes us feel loved, also knowing we love them too and in their company we often end up finding the peace and solace that usually lacks in the company of others is a very normal desire, yet to achieve the extent of self-dependence where ones own company is a source of his/her own joy is a different extent of attaining the completeness of life.

And with that comes the difference between loneliness and solitude, when one is a sickness, the other one is actually empowering. To be alone yet still be content, to see oneself in the mirror and look at the reflection as one looks at a dear friend is a superpower, a boon a gift from a greater entity.

I usually do not quote what comes across my path in my academic readings, yet while reading Francis Bacon’s ‘On Friendship’ where he quotes Aristotle saying — “Whosoever is delighted in Solitude, is either a wild Beast or a God.” it can be seen understood that one attains a beyond humane quality solely in his solitude and his solitary meditations.

He who is afraid of his own company, of being all by himself, or of having to listen to his own haunting thoughts is purely human, yet the incompetency of not being able to be self dependent for one’s own happiness is something that unfortunately makes you lack the very essence of living a complete life.

“All great and precious things are lonely.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

But beyond all the difficulties of being human, or even just existing, he who seeks refuge within the constraints of his own comforts is someone who has found a way to live their life without indulging in any form of human connections which more often than less, leads to heartbreaks and pain, though the fear of putting oneself out there can be called cowardice, seeking peace and pleasure within oneself is a superpower.

Yet in the end, it all comes down to one thing, living your life, and to live it completely, I believe there has to be an equal balance on the both aspects of life, the solitude and the companionate.

~ C. Madan