BootsnAll Travel Community

Loneliness is perhaps the wost trait of the evoled mind. When one is younger you are told that it is ok to be different. Not like many of us are when we are kids. At that age all we want is to be with our friends and play. Then as you get older and the mind develops, you begin to realize things. Like that adults suck and that things don't get easier has you get older. Quite the oppisite they just get more complicated. And you don't really like the adults that your friends from childhood have become. And trying to make new friends is damm near impossible. Then when you factor in the emotional aspect of things it gets worse. Cause all you want to do is be with someone but you know you can't. For reasons that make no sense what so ever but that dosen't make them any less compelling. Then when people bring up all the reasons your alone it just gets more painfull. Because you know their right. Then your caught in the most brutal of catch 22's. You know it won't work but you'll bring yourself to the brink of maddness and beyond. Just because you have to try every chance you get. And you'll risk everything because otherwise the prize isn't worth it. And when all's said and done your left all alone in the middle of an impact crater, because everybody else ran for cover. And all you can do is duct-tape the pieces of your shatered self back together and wait for next time. Cause you know you'll do it all over again if given the option. You tell yourself it's a bad idea, that you've played this game before and you know how it ends. But you'll try anyway because there's always the chance it'll work. One in a six billion plus is still a chance no matter how slim it might be. And it's harder when there's no one to talk to about anything. You try to talk to people but they just don't understand. Most people go through life only half aware of their surroundings, and they like it that way. I know it's true that ignorance is bliss, but I could never go back to living like that. so the price I pay to see the world in all it's glory is is loneliness and pain. It's not like I wouldn't have paid the price had I known before hand how expensive it was. I just wish there was something to take for the pain once in a while. Or a voice that didn't originate from my head to talk to every now and again. But then if life was easy everybody'd be doing it.

E.

Damn. I feel like somebody ought to say SOMETHING here, but I have no clue on what would be appropriate.

I don't know what be appropriate myself to say... but all I know is... Know that we all have been there...are going through this ... each fighting its own battles. But if we can be of any help to you do let us know...sometimes talking and sharing helps unload your mind.

My email is mreddy10@yahoo.com and am on yahoo chat.

A big hug....

I can relate E. I'm on top of the world and the sight is beautiful but there's no one there to see it with me, you know? Those people that I've started the journey with, they were all happy with the view at 5,000ft and chose to head back down while I continue to ascend. They tell me to stop climbing, to come back down, but I trek on. I fall asleep and dream I'm not alone but when I awake the only company I have are the passing winds. There's only one person on this mountain top, and it's me. And yet, for as alone as I am, and for as alone as you are, we're alone together. You alone in a crater, I alone on a mountain. A paradox? Maybe.

I know the feeling of being alone. I've been alone in a room of my closest relatives, alone at the liveliest party, alone on top of a bridge, alone at the end of a rope. But nothing hurts more than being alone without the comforting arms of another. God, it hurts so, so, very much.

So why do I climb on? Why, when theres no one to talk to, no one to share the view, no one to touch, do I continue? Because with every step I smell the sweet fragrance of the things I don't have, and it makes me thirsty for life. The air here is beautiful, I wet my appetite for the full width and breadth of human life, and only when I am full from sampling it all will I stop the walk. One day I will reach the pinnacal of the mountain and will have no choice but to continue down the other side. But when that day comes, I will have all the momentum of having conquered a mountain of loneliness.

May you find a point of light to pull you through the darkness.

Well

Paragraphs are your friends!
Ha ha ...
Ahem
Yes, this is life.
One of the things that I enjoy about getting older- I'm 34 now-. Is that this is less and less of a factor. Trying to escape to be alone is more the challenge that I face versus being lonely.

Lonliness when I did experience it as a teen almost drove me to suicide. I feel now like I was a completely different person then. I just don't relate now.

But learning and more and more learning is what changed me.

Never stop.

Hey E.,
Don't know if this really applies to how you're feeling but i came across this poem on BNA awhile back and found it very inspiring. Take it as a reminder that the risks you take are worth the pain.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To cry is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To express feelings is to risk exposing your true self
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd, is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure
But these risks must be taken, for the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
A person who risks nothing dies nothing, has nothing, and is nothing
They say avoid pain and suffering
But they cannot feel, grow, change, love, learn
Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves
They have forfeited their freedom
Only a person who risks is free

Feel better,
Sue

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So why do I climb on? Why, when theres no one to talk to, no one to share the view, no one to touch, do I continue? Because with every step I smell the sweet fragrance of the things I don't have, and it makes me thirsty for life. The air here is beautiful, I wet my appetite for the full width and breadth of human life, and only when I am full from sampling it all will I stop the walk.

And that is why we do what we do.

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Take it as a reminder that the risks you take are worth the pain.

I know that but it doesn't make it any easier.

Meaning no offense to anyone but it's kinda sad that this board is the closest some of us come to a sense of "comunity". I mean I try to talk to the people that I know around me. And I just get that glassy eyed stare. And hear things like "That sounds cool but why would you do it you have to give up so much for it.","Hey E. keep dreaming." "Thats amazing but I'd never do it." "Why would you risk your job for that?"
And the WORST thing I've ever heard was "You know E. going back-packing in europe was possibly the worst thing you did with your life. Because you had to give up so much to do it. And it didn't really look like it was worth it." And I was expected to agree with them!!! Why must I suffer the stupidities of the masses. Oh yeah because their the masses and I'm out numbered.

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A big hug....

Thank you to all of you

E.

Hi there,

Boy, do I know what you're going through. Everything you wrote in your initial post was like a cry for help, but at the same time, a celebration of your life and your journey. A paradox.

I know the loneliness, and I know the sadness that you speak of. I've been feeling it for about 4 years now. Not as a constant, but as something beneath the surface...just a presence, and awareness. Um, I'm like you. I believe ignorance is bliss, and I wish so many times a week that I was ignorant, or an unemotional, unaware, lifeless robot like so many others, because it would be so much easier...but I couldn't live that way. I also have to add that living that way is not my personality - I'm incapable of it. One could say the majority of people ARE capable of it, and they can't do anything else - and we're the special, aware ones.

I have always been rather lonely, but it wasn't such a big deal in jr high/high school. It's been since college that I've really felt it - the loneliness, that is. And I think it's so poignant and painful now because I recognize that it's part of life, and it's never gonna go away, and that makes it rather worse.

Don't despair, though, you'll find a handful of people in your life that you indeed CAN talk to, and share things with, and share your deepest emotions - whether they be joy, depression, despair, elation, confusion, hope, whatever - there will be a select number of people that will be there for you. Doesn't mean they'll be easy to find, or there will be many (it's because it doesn't happen often that we get lonely, right?), but they ARE out there.

Lynn

Some people aren't meant to be happy, fulfilled, or find a companion to share life with.

Vincent Van Gogh was ridiculed in his lifetime, and was largely friendless, misunderstood and scorned. Luckily for us, he was also a genius who poured himself into creating great works of art.

One answer is what you do with your situation. Do you become inert with misery, or react in another way? Sounds like you're staying true to your own direction, which is the only way you can really live with yourself in the end.

People who have great lives often don't have happy lives.

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And I think it's so poignant and painful now because I recognize that it's part of life, and it's never gonna go away, and that makes it rather worse.

But it's only a part of life if you want it to be so. And there in lies the parodox. At some point one choses to be an individual. From that moment on you cease to belong to the group. You exile yourself to solitude. And it's wondefull you'll experiance things most won't even be able to comprehend. And all you have to do is give up everthing that make lifes easy. Dosen't really sound fair does it. Well you can't know till you pay the price. But you can never go back once you do, at that point you lose all hope of any "easy life". Not because your life becomes fraught with peril (well sometimes it does), it just becomes harder to wake and face the world every morning(maybe that's why I don't sleep much in the first place). You'll spend days wishing for tears that will never come. They won't come because you don't need them you just want them to exhaust the pain away. Making and keeping friends becomes almost impossible. And may whatever you hold holy forgive you if you desire a mate. Because there's nothing you can do for that. Try as you might fate holds all the cards in that game. There's a reason the squirrles and birds can't be more than just friends, and only in passing at that. They both share the trees but the birds need the sky. It's not that they defy gravity they just ignore it. They know that some day garvity will take them in it's fist and bring them down hard. They know it from the first time they jump out of their home and learn to fly. But they do it any way. Most birds they mate for life. So if your lucky you have one real shot at "true love". And if your real lucky you'll know it when comes. But until that time you'll grasp at any form of intimacy you can. And in doing so you'll find friends that will be more valuble than any form of currency could ever hope to be. Just remember don't hoard your friends. When they go remember them but don't curse them. It'll hurt it always does But there isn't much you can do about it.

quote:

People who have great lives often don't have happy lives.

Ain't that the truth.

E.

P.S. If any of you tries to ruin my metaphor with some line about flying squirrles. Let it be known that every family has a couple wackos that can't make up their minds.

I hope this doesn't sound tacky, but I call this the Canary Theory:

In the old days miners would send a canary down a newly dug tunnel. They'd let it fly down and if it stopped singing they knew it was dead and there was poisonous gas in the tunnel.


So I think a lot of us today are like canaries (without dying so fast, I hope). We actually feel things more closely, we try and see more clearly and feel and experience things that most people do their best to shut out because the truth does not make life more easy. And the world today is really messed up. If you walk through it with open eyes and don't hide, then you can't help but hurt. So we feel the pain and it should be a warning sign to all the people that shut it out. Because they may not feel it as quickly as we do, but after a lifetime of blocking it all out and just living your life according to somebody else's plans and stifling your own real emotions, you must feel even worse than we do now. Because you'd be dead emotionally and spiritually. So they ought to listen, because somethings - a lot of things - are wrong today. That's why we're the canaries. Problem is, the miners are deaf.

I'm just really grateful that I've found some few people in the last few years who aren't deaf. That makes me feel so rich.

Elis, I like your analogy. Really, this whole discussion/topic is bittersweet.

I think this quote relates as well, from M.Scott Peck's 'The Road Less Traveled':

""...the person who has evolved to the highest level of awareness, of spiritual power, will likely have no one in his or her circle of acquaintances with whom to share such depth of understanding...It is such a burden that it simply could not be borne were it not for the fact that as we outdistance our fellow humans our relationship to God inevitably becomes correspondingly closer."

--------

I think it's true, but the problem I run into is that I don't really believe in a personal God as he defines it, thus, the entire quote tends to obliterate hope for me and makes it more of a burden ...but I think that's why all of this junk takes a lifetime of learning. And thankfully, like Elis said, I have 2 people I can really talk to about this stuff.

Lynn

Scott M Peck....i love his books..especially the PEOPLE OF THE LIES.

E, you've won more than half the battle by figuring all that out and standing your ground and being true to yourself despite the adversity that surrounds you. You know the bliss that you DO feel because of your choices and choosing total freedom, flexibility, self development and new knowledge over society's traps.

You're in a damn good place and you know it. Now, the task is to not lose hope just because other's don't have it for you. You can only continue to be yourself and then if someone who matches your philosophy and way of life crosses your path, you'll be drawn to each other. You've got to stay positive or you'll miss that chance when it does come.

And I think most of us know the heartache of being around others that don't share our knowledge or view of the world and can't even fathom why we make the choices we do. Negative influences are just that and you can't treat them as anything more. You sound like you know that already and you realize just how much Bootsnall brings to many of our lives that it can be hard to get out there in the real world where everyone's so physically distanced. I think the best we can do for ourselves is to stay open to these communities, surround ourselves with as many like-minded folks as possible, and never ever let the other folks take us down from our self-induced high.

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Originally posted by borderland:
Some people aren't meant to be happy, fulfilled, or find a companion to share life with.

Why? What's wrong with us?

Today was one of those days..i kept asking this question as why these things elude some of us.

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Originally posted by Madhu:

quote:

Originally posted by borderland:
Some people aren't meant to be happy, fulfilled, or find a companion to share life with.

Why? What's wrong with us?
Today was one of those days..i kept asking this question as why these things elude some of us.

Sorry Mad, my answer is going to be a bit bleak I think its because we live in an environment we define with human needs and desires, not defined by some cosmic order (I think there is a cosmic order, but we're a bit insignificant to be personally affected by it).
Happy endings and finding true love are human inventions, not rights that the universe gave us at birth.
Just because we want them, work towards them and search for them doesn't mean we'll find them.

But you should still try

Very well put, Borderland.

Those extras don't define us and aren't necessary for becoming really happy, evolved people; but that doesn't mean they're not worthwhile additional experiences to keep an eye out for.

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Happy endings and finding true love are human inventions, not rights that the universe gave us at birth.
Just because we want them, work towards them and search for them doesn't mean we'll find them.

Sorry B-land I just can't accept that. Sure the terms are human, and you are right about them not being given to us at birth. But "Happy endings & True love" do exist I've seen it happen to others. So I've still got faith in it even if I probably will never experiance it.

Rant
I go about getting my life back in order. New job, ceasing being homeless. Actually having forward momentum in my situation. And all I wanted was to share it. And what do I hear "no", and not just any kind of no. But the kind you just can't argue."I do love you but I can't be with you right now". Now the reasons given I can understand and respect, but that doesn't mean I have to like them.And here's the killer I'm given the closing statment of "If it's meant to be it will be". I hate that line. It makes me want tohit my head against a brick waal till me head breaks or the wall does. And because this is my luck we're talking about here what'll happen is the wall will break and drop just enough bricks on my head to knock me out and not kill me.Cause wihile I'm a beliver in fate. Very few things are "meant to be". If this was the first time I'd heard this that would be one thing. I'd probably move on quicker. But there's only so many times you can patch the same whole with duct tape before it starts to kill your reaction time. not that I'll pine over this. I don't pine over anything. But there are days that I wish I posessed the intestinal fortitude to apply for release. It would just make thing's easier sometimes.

E.

E, you're pining!

You don't like the line "if it's meant to be, it will be" but you believe in fate and talk about your luck....

You're leaving too much up to chance, man. and that gives you the excuse to complain about it all. Not that I don't understand your reasoning or wishes for what you don't have. I do! I'm just trying to say that maybe you could get different results from a different outlook.

There's no such thing as luck...just coincidence and the situations we create for ourselves. If you prefer being homeless, you owe it to yourself to remain that way. Don't change for any reason. When you come across someone who fits your own way of life, you'll know it. Why would you want to get "love" in exchange for not being who you are and going through all these adjustments to fit better into society or whatver in order to have it?

It's not as sweet then, is it? Yeah, I'm just an anonymous chick online, but I've been through some of the same modes of thoughts as you. Hell, we women are usually plagued with them much more than you guys are. You owe it to yourself to acknowledge what you don't have and what it's worth to you, but to ultimately be the best YOU can be, with all your quirks and alternative ways. And then, just keep your eyes peeled for those who don't have excuses for not being attached to you.

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Originally posted by Justine:
E, you're pining!

You might be right but I'm working through it.

Now has for everything else I do I do that for my own reasons. If I want to hit the road for an indefinite period of time then I need to stay put for a bit.

Now 'bout you being an "anonymous chick online" that's fixable. Mapquest says I can be on your door step in aprox. 13hrs

E.