Six Ways to Be Lonely

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. It's restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we rest in the middle of it, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a cooling loneliness that turns our usual fearful patterns upside down. There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness:

1. Less desire is the willingness to be lonely without resolution when everything in us yearns for something to change our mood.

2. Contentment means that we no longer believe that escaping our loneliness is going to bring happiness or courage or strength.

3. Avoiding unnecessary activities means that we stop looking for something to entertain us or to save us.

4. Complete discipline means that at every opportunity, we're willing to come back to the present moment with compassionate attention.

5. Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly with how things are, without trying to make them okay.

6. Not seeking security from one's discursive thoughts means no longer seeking the companionship of constant conversation with ourselves.


This is from a book I am reading that is made up of 108 teachings on cultivating fearlessness and compassion.

Winter

Besides the air of self-importance that accompanies keeping a blog, I'd still like to have a little place where I can send my thoughts out to whoever wants to ponder them. It's not all about self-importance anyways, think about why people write books. Books are written for hundreds of reasons, but I think some of the foremost reasons people write about themselves, their ideas, the people they meet...are all attempts at making sense of life. The life we are all familiar with is chaos...piles and piles of noises, fleeting glimpses of what we call happiness, but essentially the life we are all familiar with is empty. Its the eternal case of "wherever you go, there you are." I'm beginning to wonder if the majority of our habits are there to escape confrontation with ourselves. People are afraid of being alone with themselves and will do anything to keep looking outward rather than inward. I'm also becoming more and more convinced that technology exists in part to keep us from ourselves and others. The less connected we are with ourselves and with others keeps us divided, and much easier to control. And don't try to argue that internet sites like facebook and myspace and all that jazz "connect and share with others." It always comes down to authentic human interaction whether or not people connect. Yet here I am writing this on an internet blog....I can't turn anywhere without finding some kind of hypocrisy. I don't blame us for any of this, we are after all highly adaptable creatures who will do what fits within the given surroundings. I blame the surroundings. The only thing I could blame people for is knowing the truth and turning a blind eye. So I guess I do blame all of us to an extent for allowing our lives to be controlled by culture.

Somewhere deep down in the most untouched parts of ourselves we know we are empty, we know we are unhappy, because what we place value on in this society can never bring real happiness. We know that what we are doing is wrong, but we keep living life this way. (Me included mind you, I'm not one to preach from a higher than thou pulpit).

Once my childhood ended, I decided I disliked the winter. After all you always hear adults badgering about the road conditions and the ice, everyone whips out their snowplowing machines and heads to their driveways even when the area they are trying to clear is no bigger than the length of a couple feet and can be tended to with a shovel. Man vs Nature.....the most futile battle ever created since Man was "granted Dominion over the earth." If we all shut up for a minute and turned the snowblowers off, winter isn't so bad. In fact, its miraculous.