thoughts on loneliness, part II

varieties of loneliness

in spite of the fact that loneliness is a kind of pain, it can also have a certain appeal. it is perhaps not too strong to say that loneliness can at times be almost pleasant. part of the pleasure, i think, is that loneliness can somehow make one feel important or significant. i am thinking of the connection between loneliness and the 'romantic hero' -the person who, because of his uniqueness or greatness, must somehow struggle on alone, isolated and perhaps misunderstood. that picture, of course, is a bit overblown. but when we feel lonely, i think we can pretty easily see ourselves along similar lines, or at least feel that there is something special about us in our isolation. and perhaps that is part of the pleasure of loneliness: it can make us feel important, individual.

"happy being lonely...
lonely being happy..."
-b.m.

that said, we can also distinguish between a "light loneliness", in which these kind of pleasures may be present, and a "heavy loneliness" in which there are no such pleasures. by "heavy loneliness", i mean a loneliness is that is utterly oppressive, a loneliness in which we lose contact with the things that bring us joy, with the things we love, with our best selves. the contrast between "light loneliness" and "heavy loneliness" is similar to (perhaps even the same as) the contrast between "melancholy" and "depression." while both melancholy and depression are kinds of sadness, the former can be somehow attractive, while the latter holds no attraction. in melancholy, one can feel important or even ennobled. melancholy can make you feel serious, important. in contrast, depression reduces a person. it makes you feel insignificant, lifeless, less yourself, less a person. the same sort of dynamic can be present, i think, between light and heavy forms of loneliness.

so, what should we make of the pleasures that might accompany a "light loneliness"? for one thing, i think it suggests that loneliness can be a temptation. insofar as loneliness does involve the sense of one's own grand individuality, indulging in loneliness runs the risk of giving into pride. when we are lonely, it might be some consolation to cultivate the feeling because it reminds us of some exalted view of ourselves in which we are somehow above others -"brilliant but misunderstood, etc" i don't at all mean to say that feeling loneliness is a "sin." rather, i mean that there is a posture that we can take towards loneliness, and towards the pleasures in it, that can express a distorted, even sinful, view of ourselves.

at the same time, however, i think its all to easy to scoff at the romantic hero, or to write him off as adolescent and self-involved (no doubt this is part of our desire to distance ourselves from our own adolescence). but isn't there, after all, some truth in the much-maligned notion of "individualism"? what i mean is this: in some deep way, we live alone and we die alone. in some deep way, we make our choices alone and we alone bear responsibility for ourselves. that is (part of) what it means to be a self. so, perhaps we can say: the pain of loneliness is a reminder of the weight we bear as individuals, the weighting of being a self. moreover, perhaps we feel that there is something wonderful in the fact that we are each individuals, that i am a free and rational person. and insofar as loneliness reminds us of this, the pain of loneliness reminds us something profound about ourselves, and it carries with it something sweet, something inspiring.


loneliness and truth

i'm not sure if the above paragraph makes sense. and to the extent that it does make sense, i don't know ifs ultimately a fruitful way to think about loneliness. but i do think that we should be thinking seriously about the question "how should we deal with our experiences of loneliness?" and i think the case of "romantic loneliness" shows how our answers to this question will ultimately depend on whether or not we think there is a truth in our loneliness, and if so, what that truth is.

what i mean is this: if loneliness is a kind of pained perception -of oneself and one's situation- then we ought to be asking: "is this an accurate perception?" answering that question, of course, involves making lots of fine-grained distinctions in our experience of loneliness, and figuring out just what a given experience of loneliness is claiming. in the case of romantic loneliness, my thought was that this kind of loneliness might be a perception built around a picture of oneself that has some truth in it. if that were the case, then this kind of loneliness would be truth-tracking, as it were. and a truth-tracking kind of loneliness, it seems, is something that we should attend to.

on the other hand, it might be that certain experiences of loneliness represent distorted perceptions of ourselves and our situation. for example, it might be that an experience of loneliness makes us feel that we have no important connection to anyone in the world, and that feeling might simply be false. in that case, the correct approach to this feeling might involve (among other things) recognizing to ourselves that what we are feeling is not a truth-tracking emotion or mood.

of course, this suggests that it will be hard to say some things about loneliness without resorting to our broader view of things. that is, in trying to figure out whether an experience of loneliness tells us something true or false, or is healthy or unhealthy, we will be drawing on our ideas of just what a human being is, and what good human action and feeling involves. i am thinking of such questions as: what does it mean to say that human beings are social animals? what kind of isolation is upbuilding for a person, and what kind of isolation is destructive? and in the grand scheme of things, just how alone are we?

as christians, i think all this means that we need something like a "theology of loneliness." such a theology would address, among other things:

-what is the relationship between loneliness and our fallen human nature?
-can all loneliness be removed this side of heaven? should we strive for that?
-in what ways can loneliness be a part of our redemption as individuals? as a community?
-was jesus lonely? if so, what is the meaning of jesus loneliness for us?
-what light does the fact of loneliness shed on the meaning of the church?
-how does loneliness relate to our confession of the trinity -to our belief that in God's very being there is a society of persons?


these are, for the most part, just some questions of the top my head. i don't have much constructive to say in this area, though it seems to me that the church would do well to think more deeply about loneliness, not least because of how quickly loneliness often besets us, how pervasive it is, and also how much time and effort we spend fending it off. that said, it may also be that the best way to begin in this area is to think more deeply about the good things for which loneliness longs -intimacy, presence, love.

thoughts on loneliness, part I

not that long ago i was in a discussion about the topic of loneliness. what struck me most about the conversation was how this group of fairly intelligent and thoughtful people had so little to say on this topic that was worthwhile or insightful, and so much to say that was confused or flat-out wrong. and i include myself in that criticism. it was as if we weren't quite able to get our bearings for reflection, or we lacked a grammar for the topic. that experience prompted me to ask a number of other friends for their thoughts on loneliness, and also to attempt some more helpful lines of thought.


loneliness and aloneness

to be alone, it seems, is a description of one's relation to other people. to be lonely, in contrast, describes one's perception of that relation, or one's attitude about one's situation. so, it is possible to be alone without feeling lonely. and, perhaps more interestingly, it seems to be possible to feel lonely without being alone. i have in mind times when we feel disconnected to the people around us -we have family, friends, lovers, but we still feel isolated, disconnected, lonely.

"i'm high
high again...
i'm in love, but i'm so lonesome..." -b. m.

but loneliness isn't just the perception that one is alone. it seems closer to say that loneliness is the awareness that one is alone combined with the desire not to be alone. so far as i know, we don't have a specific word in english for times when one is alone, is aware that one is alone, and is happy to be alone, or contented, satisfied to be alone. loneliness, in any case, seems to carry with it a dissatisfaction, a frustration of desire. this inclines me to say that loneliness can be thought of as a kind of pain, insofar as pain is (roughly) a conscious awareness that something is going wrong, that proper function is being disrupted.

however, i think its important to note that, on a given occasion, the difference between being aware that you are alone and feeling lonely is often subtle, and just what one is feeling might not even be fully clear to the person who is feeling it. there are times when i'm not sure if i'm enjoying my afternoon alone, or starting to feel lonely. on the mild end of the spectrum, the feelings shade into each other -"do i feel like calling somebody, or would i rather just enjoy the movie by myself? i can't decide."

this way of talking makes it sound like loneliness is an emotion. maybe it is, but i'm not sure. perhaps what we call loneliness is sometimes less of an emotion and more of a mood. that is, perhaps it is less episodic and more diffuse, less focused on something in particular and more like a coloring of everything. in either case, loneliness is something that can come and go over a fairly short period of time -"i felt really lonely last night, but i feel much better now." but it is also worth noting that loneliness can be something that characterizes larger stretches of time. thus we can say, "that summer was lonely for me", or, "my teenage years were lonely ones", or even "he lived a lonely life." in these cases, i don't think we mean merely "there were lots of episodes of loneliness during that stretch of time" (though its probably part of what we mean).



loneliness, proximity, absence

to be lonely is to be discontent. in feeling lonely, we are not at rest. this has to do with the fact that loneliness -as the pained awareness that one is alone, seen through the desire not to be alone- is also a reaching, an outstretching. this is not to say that when we are lonely we actually do reach out. we may choose to sit at home alone. but internal the feeling of loneliness, i think, is a longing for something outside oneself, a striving. when we are lonely, we are 'crying out' to someone.

this inclines me to say that part of loneliness is the feeling of absence. we sense an empty space that ought to be filled. we are aware of what is not there. this is closely connected, i think, to the desire to be heard, and also to listen, as well as the desire to be seen and also to see. to feel lonely is to want to be able to gaze meaningfully at someone else, to have one's attention filled by another person. to feel lonely is also to want to be seen, to be the object of someone else's attention.

our experience of loneliness, then, is deeply rooted in the fact that we occupy bodies, and that we live in space and time. because we are thus bounded, we can be set apart from others, we can be isolated and alone. and thus we can have the painful desire that things not be otherwise, that we be brought close to another person, that this lack be filled.

less abstractly, it seems to me that there is a close connection between being lonely and missing someone. when we miss someone, we might say that we are lonely for that person -that we have a pained awareness of our isolation from that particular person, that we desire the presence of that particular person. of course, one can also be lonely without really missing someone in particular. perhaps we can say, then, that with generalized loneliness, we simply miss some-one, though not a particular one. with both missing and loneliness, there is the sense of lack, of absence, and the longing that it be filled.

in this way, i think, intimacy makes possible new and deeper forms of loneliness: to know someone is to have a new bit of yourself come into existence, a new stretch of ourselves in created in our important relationships. if the person is gone, that space within yourself that the person created is no longer filled. what remains is an empty space -a lack that is made real in memory, in expectation, in longing. so, to experience intimacy means that there is more of you, and to miss someone is, in part, to feel an emptiness in that part of you.

a new year's prayer

o lord jesus,
pass your wounded hands over the year that is past
and bless it,
forgive what is sinful
heal what is broken.
and with your hands
hold us in the year to come,
protect us from disbelief, despair and indifference
strengthen us and preserve us
in your kingdom
by your life
to your glory
amen.