Lonely or Lost.

A mismatch sock in a drawer

Feels the same. Feels so different. 

The last noodle in a bowl of soup. 

Floating on the outside. Sinking on the inside. 

-A stamped moment in time in which I was feeling lonely and lost.

Feeling alone, isolated, or disconnected is an inevitability in our life. How we aim to cure our suffering differs among all of us but the pain seems to stem from one of two wounds. One being the wound of overwhelm. The world is overwhelming, relationships are overwhelming. How do we heal this wound? One strategy is to stay out of the way. The world is big and I am not, so we avoid what the world has to offer. Another strategy would be to seek control of the other. My way or the highway. Fixed mindsets and reluctance to change. The last strategy being to give the world what it wants. Another word for this would be co-dependence. The strategies for healing the wound of insufficiency remain roughly the same, but a key difference of living in a world of insufficiency is that we tend to internalize this feeling of the world being not enough. This looks like a diminished sense of self-worth and a seemingly addictive search for reassurance.

The one word that comes to mind when thinking of how we respond to the world we perceive, is confrontation. Or should I say a lack thereof. Confrontation in this context doesn’t necessarily represent an argument with another individual, but more so the lack of confrontation with life itself. When we allow our external world to dictate our sense of self, we begin to feel alienated. Alienated from the outside world, but most importantly from ourselves. Carl Jung would argue that a reclamation of our individuality is our raison d’etre, or, the most important reason or purpose for our existence. James Hollis, a Jungian analyst and author, points out that this process of reclaiming our individuality, or individuation, requires pulling out of the collective. Pulling out of the collective family ideals, the collective societal expectations, or whatever we feel like we “should” be doing. Wait, Cole, I thought you were going to tell us how to connect and feel less lonely, this sure sounds like I am actively making myself lonely. In a way, I guess you are right, you collective you. However, the more we can stand to be with ourselves, the more we have to bring to others. As Hollis so beautifully puts, we go away to bring a unique piece back to the big puzzle. A chip in a mosaic.

So what does this all mean? Pulling away to move closer, I mean what is this. I think what I am trying to convey to all of you is to be able to have the connections we desire and can really cure the soul, we have to first know ourselves. We can never really know the other unless we know ourselves. We can never really connect before we are in touch with who we are. And it’s going to take some confrontation.