If it is possible to be solitary in a world full of people, things, noise, events, distractions; in a world where, in truth, everything and everyone is connected; then I have been. Aloneness has been a defining quality of my life, perhaps the dominant experience of it. With people or without, at work or at home, traveling or resting, in relationship or single--always I am alone inside. And in the end, at our core, we all are. When the chaos or stimulation abates and the ceaseless attempts to fill the void become still, I am ultimately alone with my choices, my feelings, the consequences of my actions, my future, myself.
I have fought it, but in the end I think the fighting made the experience stronger. I even believed, for most of my adult years, that I wanted to be alone. But I know now that I don't--I was just protecting myself. But trying to fill an empty space in one's heart with activity, distraction, or even with other people is not the path to communion. Embracing the aloneness that seems so frightening leads, in the end, to the ability to love genuinely, to share oneself without selling oneself, to give without attachment, and to trust in the goodness that may come, wherever it may come from.
Monday, June 23, 2008
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