I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one’s solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem. — Maggie Nelson, Bluets Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Loneliness
I Used to Be Depressed, Broke and Anxious
I used to be depressed, broke and anxious. Now I’m just depressed and anxious. 🙂 I appreciate this gentleman contributing free advice. It seems worthwhile. But something is off when the first thing a person tells you about themselves is how much money they make. I just read an article about a loneliness epidemic in Silicon Valley. People make a lot of money in Silicon Valley but apparently can’t figure out how to convert it into joy or connection. I’ve never seen any evidence that people with a lot of money are happier than anyone else. Quite the opposite, really. People think they’d be happy if they just had lots of money. Then they get lots of money and they’re no happier than they were before. Plus they’ve lost the fallback of thinking that the reason they’re not happy is that they don’t have a lot of money. There are… Read more →
How Lonely Can It Get?
I asked Hank Williams, “How lonely can it get?” Hank Williams hasn’t answered me yet. But I can hear him coughing all night long. A hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song. — Leonard Cohen Read more →
There’s No Comprehending
There’s no comprehending Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes And the lips you can get And still feel so alone — Joni Mitchell, “Coyote” Read more →
The Doors of Perception
We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. — Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception Read more →
There’s So Much Loneliness in the World
“I had a coffee date yesterday. My first date in over 25 years.” “You met online?” “Yes.” “How did it go?” “It was heartbreaking. She was 39 years old, still lives with her mother and uncle, has a personality that explains why she still lives with her mother and uncle at the age of 39 . . . and yet she dressed up, drove out to meet me hoping I suppose that maybe I was the person who would save her from being alone the rest of her life. “And of course I was hoping something similar about her. But I couldn’t save her and she couldn’t save me. There’s so much loneliness in the world. I wish I could save everyone but I can’t save anyone. Including myself.” Read more →
Life is Beautiful, Living is Pain
Hopes rise and dreams flicker and die. Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday. Life is beautiful and living is pain. The sound of music floats down a dark street. Hunter S. Thompson Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: The Garden of Words
The Garden of Words is a beautiful short film about loneliness and love and longing, inspired by verses from the Manyoshu, an anthology of ancient Japanese poems: A faint clap of thunder Clouded skies Perhaps rain will come If so, will you stay here with me? A faint clap of thunder Even if rain comes or not I will stay here Together with you. Rain is a central motif in the film. Like the force of love, it can’t be controlled or stopped. Highly recommended! Rating: Director: Cast: IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
My Worries Are Few
I have the ability to face up to the disturbing facts of life, except pain, sickness, death, poverty, rejection, loneliness, guilt, shame, confusion, doubt, imperfection, meaninglessness, futility and evil. Also fear of being laughed at and cruelty to animals. Read more →
You’re Funny
Yeah, I’m fucking hilarious . . . I’m not good at life, I’m completely alone in the world, but I’m pretty snappy with the jokes . . . Read more →
How Are You Doing?
I feel like I’m confronting the challenges of existence pretty effectively, with the following exceptions: the inevitability of death, freedom and its attendant responsibility, existential isolation, and meaninglessness. Read more →
Wasteland
And those that had money looked good but weren’t too happy And those who didn’t have money didn’t look so good And weren’t too happy either and in a city of three million two hundred and sixty nine thousand nine hundred eighty four Everyone was lonely — Dan Bern, “Wasteland” Read more →
Aside
It’s lonely at the top. It’s lonely at the bottom too. It’s lonely in the middle . . .
I’d Like to Be Invited
I want to be invited into other people’s lives. I’ve lived a life secluded and sequestered and now I guess what I’d like to do is be invited. This might not happen. This might not be my spirit. Maybe I was sent here to go at it alone, and maybe where I offer inspiration and have power is alone. But if you ask me, I’d like to be invited. — Rickie Lee Jones Read more →
Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamn lonely anymore. — Kurt Vonnegut
Listen to me for a day . . . an hour! . . . a moment! lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence! O God, is there no one to listen? — Seneca, 4 BC
Alone Together
We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Constant connectivity offers the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We can’t get enough of each other if we can have each other at a distance and in amounts we can control. — Sherry Turkle Read more →
You Are Not Alone
Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake Read more →
You Don’t Count, You’re Not on TV
There’s this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what’s immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what’s right around them is unimportant. And that’s why they’re lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you’re just a kind of an object. You don’t count. You’re not what they’re looking for. You’re not on TV. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
I’ve Been in a Room
I’ve never been lonely. I’ve been in a room — I’ve felt suicidal. I’ve been depressed. I’ve felt awful — awful beyond all — but I’ve never felt that one other person could enter that room and cure what was bothering me . . . or that any number of people could. . . . — Charles Bukowski Read more →