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.
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.
posted by micah at 9:37 PM
3 Comments:
i am very intrigued by the question of whether Jesus experienced loneliness. it seems to me that if he did, it could be both a loneliness of the "romantic" type (being misunderstood in his brilliance, etc.)...but also maybe just a loneliness for friends who stick with you in hard times.
it seems to me that in loneliness, the way a person frames (and whether it's "light" or "heavy") might depend on how they see the role of the other people. certainly if someone is lonely, they are longing for relationship and intimacy with others (on however small or large a scale). and for whatever reason, people are not filling that need. there seems to be 2 main ways to explain this, and i think this is part of what differentiates types of loneliness:
1) no one is meeting my needs for relationship because i am defective and flawed
or
2) no one is meeting my needs for relationship because they are defective and flawed
i think seeing which is the primary filter (probably both are in play to an extent, in most people) through which someone views their experience of loneliness helps to set the tone for what quality the loneliness will have.
hi micah.
i think there is indeed a pleasure in loneliness, and i am no stranger to that pleasure nor the pain of it. i believe in the pleasure of it because i have sometimes felt, when deeply connected to others, a fearful desire to return to that place of loneliness. like vertigo where you want to jump but you know you don't want to jump at the same time. there are wonderful things that happen in a soul during painfully lonely periods. sometimes i'm my most creative in those seasons.
i recommend two albums by the Verve during lonely times: their biggy, Urban Hymns, and the one just before it: A Northern Soul. Richard Ashcroft often sings of his bouts with loneliness, God, spirituality, relationships, etc, and it's great music. "...you come in on your own/and you leave on your own..." "...don't you find/that it's lonely/the corridor you walk down alone..."
i think the pleasant side of loneliness can be called "solitude." the state of loneliness or the negative feeling of it is to be "lonesome," while "lonely" or "solitary" should be neutral terms, methinks. in any case, loneliness is definitely a longing. i think CS Lewis would say it's that longing for that "home" that we won't ever reach in this life, it's that "bittersweet symphony" that Ashcroft sings of. but gosh, by all means, feel the feelings--who wants to be a mannequin?! enjoy it. embrace it. eat and drink it. and when those moments of deep soul-connection with others comes, try not to think about it.
your pal,
jason
I think if we turn to Wilco's Summerteeth, we can find these words of encouragement:
"How to fight lonliness? Just smile all the time."
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