Cologne, 2004-03-18

The greatest burden of our being is that we are alone, disconnected from the world around us, all by ourselves, left out.

We distinguish between them and ourselves; a barrier we can never breach. Radical constructivism explains we will never be able to share even a single momentary experience in its entirety, for ultimately we are all different in our experience of the world. This feeling is marked; it is definitely a negative today. Look around yourself and count the number of people who despair alone. How many poems mourn the feeling of loneliness?

Do they not punish prisoners by depriving them of human contact, singling them out from the group?

Now imagine a world where you would never have to experience this horrible feeling! Finally, paradise, nirvana. This is the bread and butter of most religions and sects; it fills a desperate need in us.

And truely there is refuge in the understanding that we shall never be completely alone, how much we may despair; that we cannot ever be fully separated from the universe and our surroundings.

But if you look into the sun too long, you become blind.

Imagine a world where you would never have to to experience loneliness. Being in touch with everyone, connected, all the time. Never, ever being alone.

Who would you be?

Being able to be alone is the greatest gift of the universe to us. By allowing us to distance ourselves from all that surrounds us, it allows us to experience ourselves, to distinguish between the universe and ourselves, to find our barriers. Without this distance, there would not be - there could not be - any individuality, no consciousness at all. Only in those lonely moments we can construct ourselves.

The right and the ability to be alone is often the first to be taken away; be it in prison or worse, under torture; it weakens you in the most fundamental way possible, gnawing directly at your self. Being singled out seems to rate second.

Being alone can be a sad experience. Let there be no doubt about it either. In particular after having enjoyed the feeling of connectedness, be it through meditation or love, or having felt the possibility of someone we could connect with at this fundamental level, realizing our loneliness is often sad and outright painful.

But we can draw strength from these times if only we do not despair at this gift; and even if we do. Experience and balance these moments just the same as and with those precious moments of connecting, of sharing. There cannot be one only; in each, we recharge for other.

I give myself over to the loneliness, to the sadness, to the pain, I give myself over completely, and ultimately: gladly. Do not mistake this sadness for weakness nor despair. I experience, reflect and construct myself all the more clearly whenever this contrast is my mirror. Luxurious privacy and refuge.

For this is not the loneliness of death, but the solitude of being alive.