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Wed 13 Dec, 2006 12:04 am
Emerson says in Nature "To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me"
Here he is saying that though he is physically alone, that he is not mentally alone because he has the thoughts of others influence him through what he is reading and as he writes.
I agree with him to a certain point but feel as if he did not think of every scenario. For example: A girl has been raped by someone close to her. When the attacker has left she is in a dark isolated room. She feels betrayed by the world and is thinking 'if there was a God he wouldn't have let this happen to me'. There is nothing in the room to influence her thoughts. She is just thinking about herself. Is she not truly alone?
what do you think about the question..."can one truly be alone?"
I think that one is never truly alone, but if alone means void of company, or void of recognition by other beings, then one can be "alone" in this sense.
I don't think that a person can ever be truly "alone". Even if we are in sensory deprived isolation, we still have thoughts and pictures in our minds.
I think this term, as any other, is relative. Relative to whatever context it is being put into.
The person who has no one to spend christmas with is alone that day, as in 'by himself'. But he is not alone in that there are many others who are by themselves this day.
But by this Emerson's logic we are never truly alone until we isolate ourselves from even the smallest influence. This is what ascets do. To isolate themselves even from their own presence, since they recognize the fact that the presence of oneself and the presence of others are indistinguishable.
You can be alone without being lonely if you have thoughts of others. Some people do not consider the voices in their heads to be adequate company, however. :wink:
You can be lonely in a crowd of people if you feel that no one cares about you.
You are truly alone if no one else in the world is aware of your existence.
Loneliness is a state of mind. A wish made, unconciously often, that there be no one to talk to, or play with or whatever.
The child that starts a new school every year may be having trouble making new friends because he wants the solitude of having none. Maybe, on some subconscious level, the child feels that the difficulties of being an outsider are easier to bear than constantly getting to know and love new people only to move away from them.
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