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Loneliness
March 4, 2008
Loneliness
need not be despair.
It
could be an opportunity!
Why
are people lonely? It is because they feel no contact
with anyone or anything else. They need to feel that
they are valued, that they are a part of something, and that
their environment will respond to them. When that does
not happen, they feel isolated.
One
of the major strategies for combating loneliness is to have
a mate and family. That is not always perfect, and the
problems of a relationship and family sometimes outweigh the
terror of loneliness. It is far better to be self-sufficient.
Then whether one has loved ones or not, one will not suffer
from loneliness.
Some
people claim that self-sufficiency is a myth. A person
is a social animal, they declare; people cannot successfully
live outside of some community. But that is not the
correct way to understand true self-sufficiency. What
we are referring to is a supreme sense of connection with
oneself and the cosmos around oneself. This doesn't
preclude community with others, but it does prevent the excesses
and shortcomings that occur when society is one's only source
of union.
Tao
surrounds us. One who is with Tao is never lonely but
is an integral part of the natural cycle. In the same
way that water surrounds a fish, Tao surrounds us. If
we feel lonely, then it is only because we are forgetting
how we are totally immersed in Tao. That is why loneliness
can be an opportunity: It reminds us that we are dwelling
on our own egoistic identity rather than on the support of
Tao.
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