So Many People And Loneliness Is More Apparent Than Ever?

[Principium Nexus]

"Chronic Loneliness Is a Modern-Day Epidemic" - Fortune June 2016:

http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/loneliness-is-a-modern-day-epidemic/

Do you feel lonely and what do you think it causes it? What role do you think today's society plays in this and could it have a much deeper meaning that just a lack of wanted social interaction?

From early age I have had many friends and also lost them most of the time when going to a new school or location. Currently I'm in a really though situation and my life has changed a lot, due to some depression and other issues I slowly lost contact with many good friends. Now the weird thing is that I don't feel really lonely because I found interesting hobbies that can take lots of time but I see other people struggle with even being alone for a short period of time..

My idea is that the sense of loneliness mainly arises due the digital area and it's overstimulation. Instead of asking something, the knowledge age (smartphone) has all your answers and stops you from asking obvious questions and in the same regard can satisfy you always with an unlimited amount of 'new  amazing' things.

Now there are cases where older people are not able to do things physically anymore and also lack interaction which can be very lonely, but I find it sad that younger people also have a sense of being more and more alone and that might have different causes.

So regarding to the initial questions, how do you experience this? How you ever tried to retreat from internet stuff to get more excitement from being still instead of always being in action?

 

[Leo Gura]

The root problem is that you're disconnected from being. You're running away from the void. The only cure to this is to face the void once and for all. How you distract yourself, whether physically or digitally, is beside the point.

You're addicted to excitement. Even very mild forms of it. If you spend 10 days sitting and doing nothing at all, you'll see just how bad your situation is. It's WAY worse than you ever imagined.

Go do a Vipassana retreat. It will be a huge eye-opener for ya.

The true test of whether you've conquered loneliness is whether you can spend the rest of your life all alone doing nothing and still be deeply satisfied. If you can do that, your relationships will become magical.

[Steph1988]

Consider what Charles Eisenstein wrote in Ascent of humanity it is a perspective i have never heard before 

he connects the way the economy and money creation system is structured to it and it makes sense. professionalism is a factor in breaking down community and hearing the stories from my grandparents that seems right all tho we have the internet now what is both a blessing and curse. 

quote from the book

''A further example of the professionalization of friendship is to be found in the proliferating professions of life coach, grief counselor, psychologist, spiritual adviser, and so forth. Wise advice and a steadying hand, a person to turn to and a shoulder to cry on—these too are now for sale. The rapid growth of these “services” can mean only one thing: again, that something people once did for themselves and each other has been taken away from them and sold back. Cut off from community and alienated from our own intuitive wisdom, we find ourselves increasingly dependent on professional advice.

Another thread in the mosaic of the monetized society is the replacement of such social functions as reputation, word-of-mouth, credibility, and trust with their standardized, objective counterparts. Since the professionals we pay are unknown to us and outside our shrunken social networks, we rely on various kinds of certification and licensing to assure us that these professionals are competent and responsible, protection we need in the absence of personal connections. We don’t know anything about these people, except for that tiny sliver of their lives that remains public. We know much less about the people around us than ever before. We are likely to know more about the “private lives”—matters of sex, family, and health—of our celebrities than of our next-door neighbors. And while word-of-mouth retains some power to enforce responsible professional behavior, especially in small towns, in the huge anonymous cities and suburbs, where much of the population is new to the area, we know nothing about our architects, doctors, contractors, and other professionals except what expert opinion, embodied in licensing exams and the system that confers credentials, tells us. In essence, exams and credentials represent the conversion of a social function—reputation—into money. A similar dynamic is at work in the laws to enforce contracts—a replacement for trust—and the penal code to enforce responsible behavior—a replacement for community-based social pressure. These are only necessary in a mass-scale, anonymous, monetized society.''

[Principium Nexus]

@Leo Gura Thanks for the advice! I might go to a similar retreat where you basically meditate 7 days without talking to others. You can do some walks in the forest and bring something like an empty journal or paper to draw.

Would you consider drawing or writing also as a distraction and would avoiding those help even more? It's not like doing those all day, but more like short journaling.

[Salaam]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The true test of whether you've conquered loneliness is whether you can spend the rest of your life all alone doing nothing and still be deeply satisfied. If you can do that, your relationships will become magical.

How long have you actually spent completely alone? Without any kind of intimacy with another human being or animal? With no sense of community or belonging to other humans, cultures, social groups etc.?

Unless you've actually spent an appreciable amount of time in these situations (even a month long retreat is way too small of a sample size), the above is keyboard jockeying and not something you should be touting to others as an ideal or goal.

I've actually spent large amounts of time, completely alone, in very many different settings from self-imposed to solitary confinement and I know first-hand what it's like to experience deep amounts of painful loneliness AND for that loneliness to die away and lose all compunction for wanting to connect with others, to miss people, etc.

If you haven't deeply touched both sides of a topic, you might want to refrain from making statements like this before you do damage to people who may actually try to act on these as goals. It's needlessly extreme and the path to regaining those lost compunctions can be very long, painful, and permanently damaging if not done properly.

 

[LowPlanetary]

1 hour ago, Salaam said:

How long have you actually spent completely alone? Without any kind of intimacy with another human being or animal? With no sense of community or belonging to other humans, cultures, social groups etc.?

Unless you've actually spent an appreciable amount of time in these situations (even a month long retreat is way too small of a sample size), the above is keyboard jockeying and not something you should be touting to others as an ideal or goal.

I've actually spent large amounts of time, completely alone, in very many different settings from self-imposed to solitary confinement and I know first-hand what it's like to experience deep amounts of painful loneliness AND for that loneliness to die away and lose all compunction for wanting to connect with others, to miss people, etc.

If you haven't deeply touched both sides of a topic, you might want to refrain from making statements like this before you do damage to people who may actually try to act on these as goals. It's needlessly extreme and the path to regaining those lost compunctions can be very long, painful, and permanently damaging if not done properly.

 

I don't think that's what he's saying. I believe he's saying that IF you have conquered loneliness then you will be able to not feel pain in that situation. But if you haven't then you will feel pain. You in that situation didn't conquer loneliness as evidently it did effect you. He is offering hope that actually the pain experienced from loneliness can be fixed through consciousness work. Research and practice spiritual enlightenment and you will realize what your problems are specifically and how you can fix them.

Since suffering from my understanding isn't inherently as potent as well all make it out to be and with the proper practice i think it's possible to transcend beyond suffering. 

Hope i helped.

Edited February 27, 2017 by LowPlanetary

[Leo Gura]

7 hours ago, Principium Nexus said:

Would you consider drawing or writing also as a distraction and would avoiding those help even more? It's not like doing those all day, but more like short journaling.

You're free to do it however you want, but if you're doing a serious meditation retreat, you'll want to avoid journaling. The mind is your enemy here.

[Nahm]

@Principium Nexus You could never actually be alone. You and everything around you is pure intelligence. Pure love. I suggest you pursue connectedness, alignment. Relationships are just better when you don't need anything from them. You can simply enjoy them, and take them or leave them as you go.

[Salaam]

18 hours ago, LowPlanetary said:

I don't think that's what he's saying. I believe he's saying that IF you have conquered loneliness then you will be able to not feel pain in that situation. But if you haven't then you will feel pain. You in that situation didn't conquer loneliness as evidently it did effect you. He is offering hope that actually the pain experienced from loneliness can be fixed through consciousness work. Research and practice spiritual enlightenment and you will realize what your problems are specifically and how you can fix them.

Since suffering from my understanding isn't inherently as potent as well all make it out to be and with the proper practice i think it's possible to transcend beyond suffering. 

Hope i helped.

I get the content of what he's saying, again I'm questioning the validity of it and his first hand experience of it.

The fact that he's even using the words "conquering loneliness" shows an immature and needlessly extreme rapport with what loneliness actually is that is in opposition to the reality of how things harmonize as they fit in place.

Loneliness is a signal to be addressed, that comes from our connective capacity and humanity. It is not an enemy, no more than hunger or sexuality is an enemy.

Now there is a benefit to solitude or alone time. Developing a highly diverse and individuated world within yourself that include pursuits of meaning and expand our capacities are a very healthy thing to have and necessary to reach higher thresholds of growth. However, this does NOT mean that you become invulnerable or numb to the desire for human contact and intimacy. Development in this respect, instead means that you have the capacity to maintain and nurture the health of 3 different positions at the same time. I call it trinity worlds, but it basically means you have the ability to develop and nurture your own individual world, the individual world of others, and the shared world that is co-created when two or more people interact together. A high degree of self-intimacy is great, but it does not replace shared intimacy, no more than water can replace air, they both have different roles and functions when it comes to supporting and sustaining us as human beings.

As a person who has touched both sides of how loneliness can express, who has found it's ceiling and become highly individuated in the process, while also gaining the ability to create deep intimate connections I know what loneliness addressed properly looks like (I also unfortunately know first-hand what it addressed improperly looks like).

Nowadays, I enjoy missing people and I appreciate the brief moments when I do feel lonely. I do not suffer, the feeling of stress or pain that results is a minor component in the mixture, compared to the appreciation and meaning I find in caring about people and wanting to be connected. And it's a rare when the feeling arises, because I am highly individuated and deeply enjoy my own company, while also having deep and intimate connections with people who matter to me and contribute to the formation of who I am and add to the color and beauty of my life.

That is the balance we should be aiming for. Not conquering our desire for connection and intimacy, but balancing it by developing who we are, while also developing the depth and breadth and meaning of how we connect and share space with others. You want the best of both worlds, rather than swinging to one extreme and ignoring the rest of what's out there, and what our humanity and health has an appetite for.

Three worlds actually. Because what happens when you have a strong individual world with the capabilities to meet your needs, plus a strong shared world with connection and intimacy, is that you become abundant and realize that making your world better and the shared world better also includes being generous and caring for the individual worlds of those people you have a connection with. Expanding your circle of care beyond yourself, while still being able to get your needs and wants met is a signal of success at life and the achievement of a higher tier of development.

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Salaam