Is Loneliness Being Alone?
Alone may describe the absence of others. Lonely is perhaps the realization of one’s own solitude and the pain that comes with it. Can one be alone and not lonely, and vice versa, can one be lonely and not alone? Can one be among others and feel lonely? Can one be alone and with others at the same time? These questions may sound like the kind given in a logics problem, but they are not. They are mine. They are real to me.
When I write I am alone, without others around. And even though loneliness sometimes triggers my impetus to write, I do not necessarily feel lonely. When I perform, I do not feel lonely. When I perform what I write, I do not feel lonely.
Writing serves as a bridge between my mind, which organizes my ideas, and my heart, the source of feelings about those ideas. When my body hosts my ideas and feelings and transposes them into emotions, they serve as raw material for the images I express. It is then that I experience my own presence in this world. When they connect in almost perfect harmony, I get a mega-tickle of what having a soul feels like. There is no loneliness when one feels the presence of one’s own soul. I feel the closest to my soul, to my essence, when I inhabit my body in performance.
Loneliness is not a physical thing in terms of the surrounding environment. It is more of a psycho-emotional sensation. It is pain registered through the awareness of not finding the right place, the right group of people, the right person, the right belief, the right path. Loneliness is knowing that one does not fit in. That is why I sometimes feel lonely among others. I wonder if I feel lonely in my own presence as well. How does that affect me?
Alone and lonely combine to create a playground for the artist’s images to surface. Alone, one is in charge of one’s own time and energy. There are no disruptions coming from the outside, and the ones coming from within are triggers for new imaginings.
Loneliness is like a drug. It turns one into a loner who lives in his/her mind and bursts it all out into the canvas, the paper, the dance floor, the stage, the street. Loneliness is the powerhouse of introspection. There are shelves and shelves of emotions, images, ideas, and feelings kept in the introspection archives. They move alone, alive, into new forms and shapes, visual, auditory, kinetic shapes and sounds of artistry. When I create and perform alone, the planet becomes less of a lonely place and my fellow humans less of a threat. In my loneliness, I distance myself from the outer universe to integrate with my inner one where alone I search for meaning.