Loneliness

What me lonely? Why just the other day I was engaged in my own fascinating soliloquy, great points, no one to disagree. None other? So-called conversations are sometimes simply paired soliloquies, two people talking past each other. Besides, I have my books and my poetry to protect me. Thomas Jefferson frequently dined alone.

One wonders the extent to which loneliness, while perhaps essentially a subjective state of mind, is amenable to objective measurement. Our focus article would certainly say so as it triangulates neuroscience, behavioral cognition, and evolutionary design to report on the "profound" physical and psychological toll that loneliness exacts across the globe – 36% of Americans report "serious loneliness" (Loneliness Reshapes the Brain).

Loneliness, you see, doesn't necessarily result from a lack of opportunity to meet others or a fear of social interactions. Rather circuits in our brain trap us in a loop whereby our desire to connect with others works at cross-purposes with a certain neurological reluctance to engage with those who are seen to be unreliable, judgmental and unfriendly. We thereby keep our distance by maintaining a bias towards rejection, thereby consciously or unconsciously spurning potential opportunities for connection.

Maybe so but that itself sounds judgmental as if feelings of general loneliness were some maladaptation, perhaps curable by cognitive behavioral therapy or magic mushrooms. A concluding distinction is made between a chronic condition and “transient feelings of solitude (that) will always remain part of the human experience.”

Whew. How about just labeling it as simply another personality type, say as an Enneagram-Five featuring more of a tendency to observe than to fear being left out.

We might share our respective feelings of loneliness, whether transitory or chronic, and how we process those periods. Do you welcome them as a friend or do you find yourself somewhat diminished, perhaps due to a perceived cultural stigma about aloneness?

All in all, even as we may be wired to be social animals, might there also be something transcendent about that solitary walk in the woods MM 4/1/19 Solitude (Nature)?