This is a topic that I've been trying to figure out for the longest time.
Loneliness.
It's odd that as a person who doesn't really bother with having to constantly talk to others. Somehow, there is this inner war brewing inside me. I call it the "Contradictory War of Loneliness".
It has been a long time since I felt this way. No, not the feeling of loneliness, but one step further. The feeling of not understanding why I feel a certain way. To make matters worse, I don't entirely understand this feeling either. Which makes writing about it extremely hard.
This post has been in the draft stages for many months now. Always haunting me with the blank page and my mind cycling through all the thoughts I have for this topic but it just seems so messy I don't even know what's what anymore.
Then something happened.
The world turned purple and the red stars began to fall towards the horizon. The mutated gorillas began it's triumphant rule over mankind. Just kidding.
I had a conversation with someone that had a similar experience. HOORAY! I'm not alone! (HEH.. geddit?) Unfortunately, that particular someone also don't really understand the feeling and is in the midst of struggling to understand it as well. GRRR...
It is well known that being in a crowd does not make anyone become less lonely. On the contrary, it may actually bring out the loneliness in us because of the comparison that we do so naturally. You begin to notice the lack of friends you have when you see that the crowd seem to be able to mingle and mix so well when you're just standing there staring at your glass of water. Heh... Yeah, I ain't that social in big groups. Introversion and all... but this is what boggles my mind.
I don't like talking to big groups. talking to small group of people can be fun. But I just have this constant struggle of wanting to be alone while feeling lonely at the same time.
知己
I love this Chinese word in describing a friend. It shows how this friend knows you so well it's like he or she is you! How amazing is that? To have someone know you so well that they are you.
Unfortunately, having such a friend is rare. Even worse now cause everybody seems to be so busy with life and getting things done we view people as a reminder for getting things done. We see our bosses we immediately think of the tasks that he or she has given us a couple hours ago and notice that we haven't progress one small bit. We can even look at out friends and be caught up with what we haven't done for them or they haven't done for us. We become robots and only be focused on the tasks.
This doesn't only happen to people who are task-oriented. How many times do we get to meet people regularly enough for us to be so well acquainted? Society just isn't design like this anymore. You befriend someone from your school. YAY! A minimum of 5 years together meeting each other face to face. Then, BOOM!, graduation happens and you don't seem to see each other anymore. You enter the next phase in life and make a new sets of friends. Make new friends. Boom! Next phase of your life. Make new friends. Boom! Next phase of you life. In the end, we have a list of people that we used to know and talked to on a daily basis. But no more. We add them on social network websites to "keep in touch".
This brings me back to the point of not having people around you with the same goal. If you had a friend who has the same interest or hobby or something in common. It's easier to remain as friends as you all can bond through talking about the interest or even doing activities surrounding the hobby. Thus, this friend who has something in common do not just be left behind when the next phase in life comes. Even when you are forced to separate geographically, the interest is always there. Of course, the intensity of interest grow and wanes as time goes by. This will cause the friendship to become close or further.
Think about your friends. How many of them are really close to you that you can identify yourself in them?
What boggles my mind about this whole thing is... I can't seem to understand this feeling. Lonely isn't the exact word. I'm not sad because of the lack in companionship. I sometimes also seem sad in the presence of companionship.
Sometimes I just look at the world and get overwhelmed by the vastness and richness of all of it. It's just too much to take in. Time goes on whether want it to or not; the world continues to rotate whether I stand still or I run.
Life seems so crowded sometimes and yet it just feels empty.
PS: After rereading this post... I have no idea what's the point of the post. HAHA.. Loneliness seem to be more confusing that I previously thought.
