Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Death of solitude

I used to think, for a long time, that I am a solitary animal. I thought my happiest moments come from being alone, and that friendship and company were accessories to an already fulfilling life. Now my views have started to shift. I am beginning to realise that my definition of "alone-ness" in fact makes so many assumptions about the circumstances around it, and those circumstances in the end involve other people. In fact my propensity for alone-ness stems more from an aversion to less-than-perfect friendships and taxing company, rather than from an authentic desire for solitude. Of course it is easier to get things done my way when I am alone; it is easier to satisfy my needs when they do not get in the way of others'; it is easier to be free of moral obligations when there is nobody around to upset or harm. But what use is a life lived solely by the self, for the self? What interactions with the external world can I have that are fulfilling enough to last me the rest of my life without bringing me despair? Will such a life have any meaning? In a sense a life lived deliberately away from human contact is a life that shuns the essential hardship of humanity. Only by learning how to exist with other men and women in harmony are we able to completely learn the true values of being human. If God wanted us to be solitary, self-serving creatures, then he would have made us entirely self-sufficient: our bodies would never go hungry, never run out of energy, and be self-healing. In essence, we would never die, and thus never need to reproduce. Love would cease to have meaning because there would be no need for two self-sustainable beings to connect. When love loses meaning, is there anything left that is worth living for?

Because we, in the end, are not self-sufficient and do need to depend on each other in order to survive, it inevitably follows that we MUST be able to work together in order to sustain our meaningful existence. One who chooses to live only for himself is effectively in denial of his reality, be it actively or passively. It is simply impossible to live alone: as long as you exist, you are already dependent on thousands of other things that continue your existence through to the next second.

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