Month: October 2012

In researching my feelings of aloneness, I came upon a novel idea, called Solace.

In skimming a mostly academic book on Solace, called Solace by Paul Horton, he explains the concept behinds Solace in his mind.  Since I only skimmed this book, I’ll give you my take on what he is saying, but can’t really say that it is what he meant.

Solace is the process by which we as humans calm ourselves in times of pain.

It is a process that starts when we are born and suckle at our mothers breast, before we actually have cognition that there is such as things as a split between ourselves and our mother.  At that young age, all we know is that when our body tells us something is lacking, something (our mother we later realize) helps makes the pain go away.

As our cognitive functioning grows, and we come to realize that we exist, apart from our mother, and that our mother can’t always be there to comfort us, we transfer our object of solace to other things that remind us of the mother, such as a soft blanket, pacifier, stuffed animal, or other favorite toy.

As we continue to grow in cognition, we continue to transfer the solacing object to other objects, experiences, and people, and bring them to play in our life.

Thinking about things, it would explain why some people like to sing, or to listen to music.

His book ends at development about age 34, and he doesn’t get into what we do after that (I just bought his next book… so we’ll see what he says), but I will guess that we learn how to internalize solace.  Meaning that we learn that the solacing object is not external to us, rather internal to us, which it has been the whole time, but we were too immature to realize it!

To clarify this past paragraph, the whole time that we are children, we think that the solacing object is outside of ourselves, so we use that object internally to provide solace.  As we grow, we realize that in fact we might as well skip the step and provide our own internal solace.

One important exercise that comes from this is to ask yourself, what brings you solace, and how solace feels to you.  As always, knowing a truth about ourselves, can add value no matter how we institute it in our life.  And this is a truth that we must know and recognize.

I know for me, when I hold certain objects from my youth and when I sing I find solace.  I also now find solace in spending time alone in nature, away from all the burdens of the world.  I also self solace by biting my nails and rubbing my neck – as any body language observer or good poker player will identify as a tell.

To take this an apply it to one aspect of loneliness, which is how I originally found the idea, in the book Positive Solitude by Rae Andre, I would guess that part of the emptiness that we feel when we are lonely, is from the fact that (by definition) we do not have a solacing object around to help us.  We know something is missing, since from birth we were trained to have a solacing object when we nursed, and now we are left as adults with no solacing object around to help us feel whole.

As adults we go off to transfer the solace that we want upon another, and take a lover, so we can transfer the solacing power of our mother onto them.  However, we can now see that this is only a band-aid, since the lover is very much external to ourselves, and they come and go, or at a minimum we feel closer and farther away from them from time to time.

To really rid ourselves of loneliness then, we must learn to self-solace (which we can do by focusing on the internal parent child relationship) and then the pain of loneliness will fade away as we learn that the object of solace is none other than ourselves, and we have been there the whole time.

I have been reading a number of books on Loneliness in support of healing that part of myself, and in doing so, bumped into the idea of Solitude, which I had the opportunity to read a little on as well.  I should note that I very much enjoy “me time,” but never gave that enjoyment a name – solitude.

The book that I last read (Positive Solitude by Rae Andre) suggests that loneliness is the outcome of a feedback gap that we create by always having people around as we grow up.  So by filling up that gap with ourselves, we can rid ourselves of loneliness.

It is an interesting idea, which I would agree is very true to some extent, but left me with the question of how the solitary person would live in relationships with others.  Of course, we could rid ourselves of the need altogether of human emotional intimacy, but do we really want to do that?  Isn’t that part of the enjoyable part of the world we get to participate in?

As I tried to frame both Loneliness and Solitude vis-à-vis Self and Community, I came up with this model in an email I sent out:

“In truth, Loneliness and Solitude would seem to sit on a spectrum of being alone, while Loneliness and Togetherness seem to sit on the spectrum of being in society.  Since we are people who are both alone and in society and the same time, both aspects must be considered. But considered differently.”

While I liked that idea a lot, it didn’t quite sit well with me. It kind of worked, but not quite.  Close, but no cigar.

So I continued thinking about it as well as continued to struggle with how to live happily in Solitude without denying myself the pleasure of intimate human relationships.

Which is when I realized that in truth, solitude is nothing other than intimacy with oneself.  It is that time when we are in total connection with ourselves, and nothing else really matters outside of the small secure quiet world we have created for ourselves. It is much like an intimate emotional relationship, when we can be totally open with our feelings, due to not feeling vulnerable with the other person we are with, solitude seems to work the same way.

Interestingly, solitude can only be found when alone, much like emotional intimacy with multiple people is impossible – at least at the same time.  When you are fully present with one, we can’t be fully present with another.

Loneliness, as I have experienced things, is the feeling I get when I want an intimate emotional relationship with others, but don’t have it (for whatever reason).  The fact, that I could have an intimate relationship with myself at that time, doesn’t assuage my feelings of loneliness.  In fact, it is my desire for intimate connect with others besides myself that drives my loneliness.

So if I am honest, I am a little stuck at this point.  Do we need people or not?  Study after study shows that that we do.  And we would intuit the same.

However, it could be that our intuition is totally off, due to the societal reality that we grow up in.  Meaning that it might be that we only need people when we think we need people, which results in the negative results we see when we don’t have people.  If the person realized that they didn’t need people, they wouldn’t have the same negative outcomes when they don’t have people and studies would show different outcomes.

Having said all of that, I think most of the above is highly academic.

People are a pleasurable part of our life, and to rid ourselves of this “need” would result in restricting pleasure.  Better to keep people in, and figure out how to minimize the negative impacts of loneliness.  It is kind of like restricting coffee, due to the fact that you don’t want to be addicted to it.  In my view, life is better with a need for coffee, and coffee in my cup, than without. So too friends.

In truth, the book I read on solitude I think will help minimize these negative impacts by allowing me to bring to mind the fact of what creates my loneliness, and as we all know, often simple cognizance makes all the difference.

 

I woke up this morning with a new realization.  It is time to stop thinking and start doing.

As I turned to my journal to take it with me for the day, I said to myself, “Enough, Josh.  You don’t need to think any more.”

You see, thinking was to some extent my way of making sure that I didn’t make a mistake by missing something big.  It serves as an anxiety distancing tool.  And a pretty effective one at that.

However, at this point, I think it has outgrown its place, and it is time to rein things in.

So, I’m taking a thinking break.

I’ll just be living and loving, and focusing on being in the moment, and not thinking about the whats or the whys or the hows.

If I am honest, I’m not sure exactly why I am doing this, but I can’t really think about that, now can I?

Until later, friends

****

OK, it’s later.  About a week later actually.  And I have this great idea.  And I really want to post it.  But I’m not sure, since I told myself I was ending things a week ago.  What should I do?

Well, of course, I’ll post it.  Tomorrow.

Of course, the lesson above certainly stands.  Sometimes, it is time to stop thinking and start doing.  (Side note, those people  you know who seem very talented, social, and smart, but never can get anything done, really need to learn this lesson.)

However, sometimes that times passes and it is time to go back to ones old ways, perhaps in a slightly different mode.  For me, that includes less journaling and more living in the moment.   Finding a good middle ground. After all, much of my thinking is natural and enjoyable and the remaining 20% is just a byproduct of not having easy access to TV.  What else am I supposed to do when I am alone at night, besides read?  And think.

So the blog, isn’t over, but it certainly isn’t going to be a focus either.  If you want to sign up for email updates, there is an option to do that in the upper right hand corner of the page.  That way, when I do put something out, which going forward will be sporadic, you won’t miss it.

I get all kinds of relationship advice.  Much of which is contradictory.

“Chill, go with the flow, and don’t think about it too much.” vs “**** or get of the pot.”

“If you are into her you’ll feel it.”  vs “Emotions take time to grow.”

“A relationship should be easy.” vs “A relationship takes work.”

I could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, I won’t.

In dating there is typically no definitive”right way”.  There is only a way that works for both parties, and a way that doesn’t work for both parties.

Having said that, there is one thing that is of utmost importance, one right way. Clearly communicating when something is bothering you in about your relationship, ideally detached from the underlying emotion.

It is only by doing this that we can avoid the traps that come from miscommunication due to assumptions and projections that the other party makes about things that negatively impact the relationship.

In fact, if we don’t choose to do this, I would argue that there is no relationship.  Rather, two scared people sitting across the table from each other.

A friend of mine told me a great line in reference to dating, that “When you settle, you get exactly what you settle for.”

I think that this is very true, and in fact, commitment happens when both parties to a relationship are willing to settle for the other person.

Herein, I think, lies a problem.

Having done some research on the science of choices, there are two broad strokes of people.  One person will accept the first option that is “good enough” to meet their needs, while another first carefully surveys all of their options before making a selection.

I myself, act like the first person in most decisions, but the second person in very important decisions, like buying a house or choosing who to commit to. The issue is that in dating, there is an endless number of potential people out there (most just one click away!) making it very difficult to settle for another.  As I date, I can always thinking that in a worst case, a better person is just around the corner, which serves as an emotional protection from rejection (they did me a favor!) and makes it hard to commit.

On the other hand, perhaps there is truth to the perspective that someone times a person needs to be ready to settle down (brings a new meaning to settle down, doesn’t it?), and I am not ready to settle.  However, on the other hand, it could simply mean that I haven’t met the right person, that I am willing to settle for.

In all honestly, I’m not sure which perspective is correct.  And like many truths, my gut is that the answer is somewhere in between.  However, this is something that I am actively thinking about, and need to figure out quickly so as not to hurt others – or myself.