#rationality #personal-growth # [[Epistemic status]] #shower-thought #to-digest # Related - [[Blood]] - [[Happiness]] - [[Osho - Courage the Joy of Living Dangerously]] - [[Seeking discomfort]] - [[Simulacre]] - [[Mapping maps]] # TODO > [!TODO] TODO # Loneliness >One of the major reasons for suffering is the sense of isolation, the feeling of total loneliness. That is, to feel that you have nothing to depend upon, that you have no relationship with anyone, that you are totally isolated. You have had this feeling, I am quite sure. You may be with your family, in a bus, or at a party, and you have moments of an extraordinary sense of isolation, an extraordinary sense of lack, of total nothingness. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]  >To a shameful extent, the charm of marriage boils down to how unpleasant it is to be alone. >~ [[Alain de Botton - The Course of Love|Alain de Botton]]  >Can I be aware of loneliness without rationalizing, without trying to find the cause of it, just observe, and in that observation discover that escape is through attachment to an idea, to a concept, to a belief. Can I be aware of that belief and how it is an escape? When I observe it quietly, the escape and the belief disappear without any effort. The moment I introduce effort, then there is the observer and the observed, and therefore conflict, but when I am aware of all the implications of loneliness, then there is no observer, there is only the fact of this feeling of being utterly isolated. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]  Loneliness is when you cannot find maps that overlap with [[The Map is not the Territory|your map of the territory]]  >Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe. >~ [[Lao Tze]]  >Avoiding and overcoming loneliness are equally futile; though suppressed or neglected, the pain, the problem, is still there. You may lose yourself in a crowd, and yet be utterly lonely; you may be intensely active, but loneliness silently creeps upon you; put the book down, and it is there. Amusements and drinks cannot drown loneliness; you may temporarily evade it, but when the laughter and the effects of alcohol are over, the fear of loneliness returns. You may be ambitious and successful, you may have vast power over others, you may be rich in knowledge, you may worship and forget yourself in the rigmarole of rituals; but do what you will, the ache of loneliness continues. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]   >The entity who tries to fill or run away from emptiness, incompleteness, loneliness, is not different from that which he is avoiding; he is it. He cannot run away from himself; all that he can do is to understand himself. He is his loneliness, his emptiness; and as long as he regards it as something separate from himself, he will be in illusion and endless conflict. When he directly experiences that he is his own loneliness, then only can there be freedom from fear. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]  >This isolation takes place also through our daily activity—my ambition, my greed, my envy, concern with my own desire to fulfil, to become somebody, to improve myself. I am so concerned with my beastly little self, and that is part of my loneliness. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]  >[[Philosophy/Humans/Love|Love]] and emptiness cannot abide together, when there is the feeling of loneliness, love is not. >~ [[Krishnamurti|Jiddu Krishnamurti]]  # External links