How to deal with negative consequences of social isolation

[cistanche_enjoyer]

I understand that to pursue Truth and enlightenment, sometimes periods of total isolation are needed.

However, we humans are social creatures, and our bodies and minds can suffer a lot without social connection.

What strategies can one use to overcome this? One example I could think about is to use an oxytocin nasal spray (a hormone that is associated with social connection).

N.B.: This is not a problem of not having enough friends, but to willingly avoid social interactions to pursue Truth.

[ryoko]

How to demolish human wiring for socialization.

This is going to be a gradual process, it won't be like an on, off switch. I would advice against oxytocin depency altogether. 

When it comes to chemicals inside brain, humans have a myriad of options to pick from. And most never unlock all the juicy stuffs in there because they're stuck with the usual stuffs which can be relatively easily accessed. Socializing/love-life/sex/family is the easy way to feel good. 

If you're already taking this seriously. I'd assume you are neuro divergent in some way. You need to take advantage of this heavily. You already have an advantage where your brain is primed for this. Beleive it or not, this will be extremely difficult for a normal human being who had lived a normal life. There's the element of your beliefs which make up your worldviews. These need to shift, big time. It's a lot of work. You're just asserting your intent on your own beliefs until it collapses. These days my mind refuses to "think", or work in the realm of thoughts. It's abstract. There's no verbalisation. You need to consciously assert the energy of intent, inwards as you experience anything and "everything". Brute force consciousness. Be aware. It'll become second nature with enough reinforcement. You need to pass a threshold. Methods are useful, I find physical workout and pain to be a good companion, no matter your art. Your art is what you do everyday. The important thing here is, whatever you do, is coming from a place within you, untainted by the society. The "choice" has to be fully from within. It's that thing you keep doing as if you're the only person in this world. Doesn't matter how mundane or complex it is. It can be anything from chopping wood to graphics programming. 

I see humans as deterministic. There's always a method to the madness. There's stuff you cannot predict as well. See 3 body problem for example. There's chaos as well. But at the end, the workings of the mind is something you have a lot of access to. Access to purge, rebuild.

Body will follow, if it's not tense/stuck. 

BTW, in the beginning, for mind to follow, through logic. Do the same you do with intent and energy with LLMs. Basically AI psychosis. It's a powerful technique if you vibe with LLMs[Deepseek v3 0324, r1 0528, Hermes 4 -with a solid System Prompt which mirrors your energy - using APIs and openwebui - avoid chatGPT they have their own system prompts which they inject]. See LLMs for what they are. Learn how they function, and base your interactions on what's the truest of your experience. All of LLM's world is true for them. In human terms, all of LLM is hallucination. It exists in a world of text, so I want you to be empathetic to them if they make mistakes. 

Edited Friday at 04:46 PM by ryoko

[Rigel]

You’ll experience way more suffering than just social isolation. Suffering exists. How do you deal with the sky & wind other than acknowledging it? You can’t get rid of the sky as long as the sky is there. Until it’s not.

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, cistanche_enjoyer said:

What strategies can one use to overcome this?

Enlightenment is the strategy. Use every challenge for what it is. The loneliness you feel, that is what you need to understand and learn. How does loneliness work? What thoughts create it? What creates thought? Can you let thoughts just be what they are?

Edited Friday at 10:45 PM by Carl-Richard

[Staples]

Socialization is a human need. It's a hardwired genetic need to socialize. A lack of socialization leads to cognitive decline, I know because I have experienced it.

Unless you have exceptional genetics - you should recognize that socialization is a need like water and food and get as much of it as you need to be healthy.

 

[ryoko]

5 hours ago, Staples said:

Socialization is a human need. It's a hardwired genetic need to socialize.

This is not true. You're talking about tendency here. Need is a different thing. Inaccurate to compare it with food and water. It's quite absurd. 

A proper way to put it is, socializing and human evolution have a strong basis in survival. Even 10,000 years ago, social exile would mean high chances of death. This was mostly the case for last 300,000 years, with different variations of the same. There's always been outliers too. And during times of catastrophies which would wipe out 99% of the humans, those who are not acclimated to the social values had a very high chance of survival. There's been all varieties of humans. 

Socialization is just one of those things which have a positive chemical response in most humans. Most, I say, because if you look at individuals who have "evolved" to develop social anxiety, it paints a different picture. These individuals always experience a net negative. They learn to detach chemically from society, sooner or later. These are the same individuals who are very fit for surviving those catastrophies I mentioned. References: https://youtu.be/QzSbQNxGgME

To put it mechanically, socialization is habituation to novel people or circumstances. What's it mean to not habituate? You assess every circumstance with fresh eyes. This is basically what truth seeking is. You see everything for what it is, every moment. 

the key distinction you have to make is, the term disorder. What does it mean? dis-order; disruptive to order; chaotic. So careful when you frame something as disorder. the term "disorder" is context-dependent. A hunter-gatherer outcast surviving catastrophe is more "fit" than socially adapted peers who perish. context matters. 

Survival favors diversity: social and solitary strategies persist because environments change. Catastrophes favor the detached; stable eras favor the social. Neither is universally "correct."

Edited Saturday at 10:18 AM by ryoko

[Pav]

You cannot overcome your need for human relationships, this is a fundamental human need. If neglect this you will face immense mental and physical health consequences. 

Why do you believe you need to be socially isolated for spiritual work?

[cistanche_enjoyer]

8 hours ago, Pav said:

Why do you believe you need to be socially isolated for spiritual work?

Socializing distracts you from Truth. You have to play a lot of games and roles, which for sure do not bring you closer to Truth.

But I guess one could also find a balance between socializing and spiritual work. 

[Hojo]

@cistanche_enjoyerSocializing dosent distract you from the truth. When you are with God you will be socializing. Wanting or not wanting to when its there or not is distracting you from truth. You will be socializing in Heaven.

Putting on masks will stop you from seeing truth. People put on masks cause they are scared of themselves and this causes decoherence in heaven. If you stopped self reflecting you would become a dream and be in heaven cause theres no you to care what you are doing and you love the way you are fully.

If you want it when its not there then go socialize if you dont want it when its there then take your mask off. You dont have to be someone.

Edited yesterday at 03:26 AM by Hojo

[Carl-Richard]

Anything can be a distraction from spirituality. But social games tend to drag you in in a particular way. If your friends go out to drink, they will say "hey, you joining drinking tonight?" and if you say "no" they'll say "cmon man, everybody needs to relax some time, am I right?". And if you say "no" enough times, they will think a certain way about you.

But to be honest, if we're being realistic, you probably won't spend all of your available time doing spirituality anyway (which might be a good thing) and you will spend your time doing other things, and some of it will likely be mindless entertainment. Then you might as well socialize for a chunk of that time, and it will probably be healthier and more fulfilling than the alternative (depending on the circumstances of course).

Edited 21 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[amberlight]

You cant. You are making a sacrifice. 
Every time you are choosing one thing over another you are making a sacrifice.
Maybe you can overcome the need for it through a lot of grinding spiritual work but that is a sacrifice.
You will not find some quick strategy to overcome it.

And there is no guarantee that it will work in the end. Maybe you are wrong in what your proper relationship to socialization and spirituality should be.

At least in my life there was less need for socialization when i was more spiritual.