1) A is a government servant who has been working at Penang for 12 years and has settled down a family live in this state as well. However, he has been promoted and will be posted to another state at another extreme side of Malaysia, Johor. He is excited about it, but he is concerned about how he'll cope living alone without his family.
2) B is also a government servant who has passed his prime age of working. However, although not in his retirement age, he is observed to be very well suited to be in life supported by his children. I wondered if it was about being independent and living on what he made. No, he kept working because he thought if he didn't, he'd stay alone at home and the feeling of loneliness might hurt him.
3) C is a teenager who has the habit of adding every girl he knows in his life (and send them flirty messages too, regardless they have a boyfriend) in his Facebook friends list. He is a resident in a juvenile rehab center and he said one of the way to cope with feeling isolated from friends who were all outside was to get the comfort from the idea that the girls might find him handsome and would like to get to know him better.
You see, all of these three people with whom I had a conversation with were married, popular among friends, never would have struck as the kind of person who might feel lonely in his life. So, I was thinking, if we all feel lonely at some point (if not all) of our lives, what makes some of us more vulnerable to the danger of loneliness?
Perhaps it has something to do with the way we adjust to being alone. Do we look at being alone as loneliness or as solitariness? Do we appreciate the time we have for ourselves or do we just want to get out from companyless time as soon as possible? Maybe after all just like beauty, being alone is in the heart of the beholder.
3 comments:
Good one my friend,
interesting topic actually as I feel I could relate to what they have shared with you. There are times we cherish solitude.. enjoying the moment with self. There are times when we need friends and family around us to give the sense of belonging and being loved. No one can survive being alone unless he or she is mentally unwell and think about ourselves. How long can you we go without interacting or having some fun with friends or family.
As you already know from Dr Angeline's class - People are social beings (can't forget the fun in class) and as such we seek companionship which may appear in many forms - friends, family, relationships.. Without them, life is incomplete.. at least, that's what i feel
:)
Hey there,
Love your insights. Thought I share with you a quote I came across many years ago. Here goes...
"Loneliness is a nice feeling, beyond words, when we choose it ourselves. But it's horrible when others make us choose it"
I think, for an introvert like me, I need that alone time frequently. To withdraw from ppl for a while, especially since my work involves being surrounded by ppl most of the time. So, I do enjoy those quiet moments when it's just me and my thoughts. But there are also times, when I want to be with ppl and that's when I'll get lonely if I don't receive the companionship.
Anyway, I'm not sure if you were in the same class with me before, but there was this one class with Ms. Mimi when we discussed the difference between lonely and being alone. Just like the brain and mind analogy.... alone is more physical and concrete while lonely is more psychological. You can be alone in your room but never lonely because you know somewhere someone is thinking about you. On the other hand, you can be surrounded by ppl but still feel lonely because you feel no one really connects to you.
It's mind boggling, really. The study of human beings.
Anyway, good entry.
Liza from Sgp :)
Guga: It's true! As they said, no man's an island. We are social beings. We can't survive being alone. But when comes the time for us to have to be alone, I guess we just need to make the best out of it.
Liza: I think we were in the same class, because I remember the discussion! I remember one article that said being lonely is not about not being around people, but not being around people who can make us feel part of something.
Thanks guys for the extra inputs!
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