The Continuum

Loneliness

2009-08-22T09:54:34Z

My sleep schedule has been inconsistent the past week or so. I've been mildly afflicted with some tonsillitis since the morning of the 17th, the same morning that I started a week-long experiment of vegetarian dieting. I've been, somewhat anxiously, anticipating the start of a full college schedule--a first. I've also been riding on a slow-ebbing loneliness since I got back from North Carolina on the 18th of June.

Relationships:

I posed a question to myself about a week ago and placed it on my whiteboard so that I would be reminded of it, so that I could ponder it more often than I would if I'd forgotten it. The question is: If you suffer from loneliness do you find someone to take that feeling away so you can get to know yourself when you aren't obsessing over loneliness or do you learn to get over that feeling by finding other ways to be happy so you can find someone capable of taking away your loneliness?

The question is better understood when you know the goal, where you're aiming the question, when you know where you want to look for the answer, which is inner peace. OK, when I know what I want from the answer. So, perhaps the question is better digested when stated thus: When searching for inner peace while loneliness is your greatest obstacle, is it better to face that obstacle alone, or with a companion? Do we find a deeper peace once we've learned to love ourselves without the reassurance of another, leading to two options; that we keep to the deeper peace like a monk, resisting any social or romantic temptations; or do we surface from the state of mind with new eyes that show us who we're meant to be with? Or, can we simply not know peace until we've found our companions?

Lately, I've been sympathizing with the latter answer, perhaps because it's more simple to grasp emotionally, though my logic, as always, empathizes with the former. This change is represented by the change of my desires. I no longer crave sexual satisfaction alone from others. Porn has become a less prominent force in my "personal time" and I feel more compelled to treat others, namely potential companions, with more respect and honesty. Basically, I'm craving a friendship like I don't remember craving before. A sign of maturity? A sign of advanced loneliness? I'm not sure, but it feels right. The craving feels human, less ambiguous than before, and powerful,
therefore inspiring.

This obstacle of loneliness is formidable. I've overcome nicotine addiction, depression, drug abuse, unhealthy friendships, and learning disorders, but not loneliness, which happened to be the cause of most of my issues. I smoked because it kept emotions at bay, I became depressed when I couldn't stop realizing I didn't have a friend to analyze my every thought with, I turned to drugs when I didn't feel enough for those I thought more than myself, and I become more distracted with every advancing thought of loneliness. I've hacked my way through a haunted, sci-fi movie jungle and found myself in front of the menacing heart of all my troubles. Will I be the hero that overcomes, or become another body, another pile of bones spat out from the belly of the beast, designed to stir the true champion up enough so that he may avenge all of those that have fallen to the poisonous vines of the beast called Lonely.

proconconpro @ 2009-07-21T13:23:00

2009-07-21T17:36:19Z

a great weakness of mine is loneliness.

i miss josh. when i remember how i held him i feel empty because i realize that i'm alone, wherever, and possibly for the long run, and that i might as well be cuddling air

i miss ashley. i realize that i'm always walking on eggshells with her, and sometimes i get careless, annoyed, tired of the challenge. i don't like being bossed around, but she is my only true friend; i wish she would join me in my carelessness. i wish she were confident and objective

i'm rereading the Subtle Knife. the passages alluding to lyra and will's friendship are wonderful, especially since i'm feeling lonely.

proconconpro @ 2009-06-13T03:06:00

2009-06-13T07:17:02Z

he told me about a pulsar when i was drunk on his couch. he explained a ball of spinning fire that spun so fast it shot beams of light from its poles. i imagined such an intricate portion of an equation unknown to itself: the sun creating and supporting life while all it intended to do was split atoms and play with fire. out there. in space. alone. i thought, "how interesting," and tears came to my eyes

i saw him moving his hands, following a song. he was off beat. he conveyed all the emotions the song should have made him feel. he looked down at me and said, "this is what you do for me," and kept singing to... for himself. i smiled at the hint of everlasting love, but knew i was fooling myself; tears didn't come to our eyes. we died in an "epic battle."

"you are, by far, the most interesting person i've ever met." his eyes were dry. his breath stank; it crept through my nose and settled on my tongue. his skin was blemished. his demeanor was weak and innocent. he was 10 years my senior. i hope he finds someone who brings tears to his eyes.

ender's game

2009-05-24T05:27:49Z

We are like you; the thought pressed into his mind. We did not mean to murder, and when we understood, we never came again. We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.

-Orson Scott Card

proconconpro @ 2009-05-07T00:38:00

2009-05-07T04:49:45Z

Inklings are my currency; questions - my dollars; experience - my cents. They are my riches which I trade to survive amongst this dismal plane with these wandering drones. Most don't accept my coin, but you collect my soul! You've re-crafted time & space to bestow my whole heart upon a modest shrine that beckons you, my meat & marrow's most cherished missionary, in times of happiness, sadness and everything in-between. Without your words I am a code unrealized, trapped in a bitter world, with a stalling mind. Come to me with your time, your arms, and your body to hold and I shall bless you with the sun my soul doth feed, and you will reflect its light and be a walking mystery upon this Earth, a legend of mystic silver, guiding or hiding as you please, a story of a thousand origins, my moon, indebted by the patrons of my mind, the ghosts of the lost that I encounter, and I shall pay you with the diamond of my inklings, the condensed and brilliant bounty of my life: the purest love. The most precious stone that all develop within. I can only hope it's large enough.... but a new sun's shine the moon does find.

proconconpro @ 2009-04-15T02:14:00

2009-04-15T06:15:08Z

i've finally met a schizophrenic

proconconpro @ 2009-03-31T14:29:00

2009-03-31T18:29:19Z

Colonel Radec is gnashing at my ass, jaws-style

proconconpro @ 2009-03-30T05:01:00

2009-03-30T09:01:54Z

Movie: Watching the Detectives

proconconpro @ 2009-03-20T15:12:00

2009-03-20T19:13:13Z

don't leave private papers lying around
lesson learned

can you do the janjan? jan can

2009-03-12T00:04:11Z

when i got your last letter i was glad that you felt you'd found a suitable result from the meyers-briggs test. i didn't respond, though, because i'm somewhat resentful for obsessing over it so much in the past -- it's causing a lot of issues. it has even contributed to me getting a tattoo which says, "knowing yourself is knowing a limitation." i may be more inclined towards the ISTP type, but i think, depending on my environment, i'm apt to be more inclined towards anything that makes me feel more comfortable. i can truly relate to the mindset of almost all 16 types. when i took the test over and over, my results were more often than not INTP, and all the letters were at a low percentage, save the former most I, signifying a sway-prone personality.

whenever i turned to the test i was looking, desperately, for answers about who i was and who i SHOULD be.

if you know me at all, most of the problems resulted from the second question. who i "am" never seemed -- and still doesn't -- relevant, seeing as every thing that one experiences changes them, and all occurrences are out of our control (what you recognize as fate, what i recognize as math without a 'why,' chance, something that isn't yet understood. answers that should instead be sought objectively and at the beginning with the question-word 'how.')

the test, i feel, comes from technocrats who don't acknowledge the evolution of psychology. men who try to place us on straight lines, who would slam all our natural paths, which are jagged and sloppy, much like a black smith. burn us till we are weak and malleable (desperately seeking unquestioning guidance for an identity that fits in the complicated puzzle of this world), then slam us with cast iron hammers, leaving us as straight and calculated as the bushes that are placed on the medians of our roads, and the beams of our buildings. made by others for us, with all the knowledge of how it works and was constructed possessed by the builders. i'd like to build my own house, so to speak, for me to live in so that i may understand it fully and be proud of its originality.

CHARTED!

2009-03-11T08:05:57Z

what fun

proconconpro @ 2009-02-26T14:06:00

2009-02-26T19:07:33Z

perhaps, when one becomes so exposed to dramatic irony in movies, over the years one become paranoid of others' intentions, becomes cynical

proconconpro @ 2009-02-13T01:44:00

2009-02-13T06:45:41Z

today is friday, february 13th, the day of my 20th lap around the Sun. i do not work today.

proconconpro @ 2009-01-02T22:46:00

2009-01-03T04:03:56Z

a poet sat in a marketplace looking for words and found none. he tried the solidarity of nature and still found nothing. searching through soothing ocean waves, bumpy car rides, volunteering his time and working he found no words to communicate his feelings--he found nothing but a struggling silence. so he sat in a dark, quiet room, where after a short time he decided that having no words was poetic enough.

i don't know what it is, but i know what it isn't

i want to try a creative fast. starting when ashley leaves on the 19th because there will be no one to get me to listen to music because we have nothing to talk about, and no one to get me to watch tv or go see a movie out of boredom (no offense, ashley, but that's how all friendships tend to function). i will indulge in no one else's music or fiction of any kind. i say no one else's because i'm hoping that the loss of my constant pleasures will encourage me to make something of my own... or some other miracle. maybe getting my mind of romance in music and movies/tv will be the best thing that i ever did for myself.

i haven't gone to sleep without hearing a song all day in a very long time. realistically, a 100% fast will be impossible unless i also avoid my parents which will send some very bad signals and cause emotional questions to be asked that i can't answer with emotion in my voice. they support me, i don't want to get kicked out on my ass. i'll see how it goes. i'm trying anyways.

sport of self-pity

2008-12-30T06:26:56Z

with the last of my money i purchased myself a Wii so that i may sit on my couch and point-click at my parents' massive TV, perusing youtube and clicking one letter at a time whilst benefiting from the comforts of a big, comfy couch. oh yes, my distant readers, Sean is now thinking on his toes, he's two spaces ahead, he's before his time, HE'S LIVIN' IN THE FUTURE! for Sean now has every excuse to procrastinate a beautiful life. no money. no friends at home. mediocre job. i should stop. i'm being such a "statistic."

proconconpro @ 2008-12-29T00:11:00

2008-12-29T05:13:45Z

house of morecock
he's so rough
my gay neighbor
man milkmen
bustin buttholes
he's got size
pour me a stiff one
+surfcock of waikiki
______________________

$150

and so begins my lonely lifestyle

proconconpro @ 2008-12-20T01:19:00

2008-12-20T06:32:30Z

Cormac McCarthy

this is stupid: i am annoyed that i spent $50 on an electronic dictionary so that i could whip it out every other word in order to define your unemotional descriptions of pointless scenery because most of the words aren't even in its bank of 200,000... LOCUTIONS. DOUCHEBAG. a monk would laugh at me for this complaint, and judging from your only interview (with oprah) i think you would too, cormac, but only because the monk did.

i hope my opinion changes

cigarette lyrics

2008-12-13T06:56:34Z

With fire in my lungs, I breath only smoke, like a young dragon. A rancorous stink lingers on my tongue, unsinged and lively, despite the murderous heat that protrudes from deep within. From my heart? No, from my gut. Itt burns in my belly--uncalm, unpeaceful and full of anger, yet I am breathing slowly. A dying flame, or a young flame? Old men return to youth, do they not? Alas, my mind is lucid, senile I am not. A flame I can bring, but I have not the means to carry it abroad: the wings of the child makes it the fire of the child. A fire that is stolen... borrowed... implanted... something.... I do not know the word; I am young, not old. I am confused, but not senile. A fire in the depths dies before it can feed. The foliage... the fuel... the lack of these things starves me. My heart burns as smoke passes, but it's soothed by the heat. Bittersweet, the feeling I know so well. Extremes. One side, and the other. I do not have the other piece of me, yet. There is no cross-road, only a segment.

proconconpro @ 2008-12-11T19:03:00

2008-12-12T00:07:24Z

oldie: it was written for sean gianotti, my "first love"
go figure, i feel like putting it up

i get jealous when you say it
i get jealous when you don't
i get jealous when you can't see me
i get jealous when when you won't

i get jealous when i think of how we've never even met
i get jealous when i realize i'm easy to forget
i get jealous when i can't even hold you in my arms
i get jealous when i think of how i want to hear your charms

i get jealous when he smiles as he gets to touch your face
i get jealous when he looks at you and drifts in and out of space
i get jealous when he calls you and you turn your head to stare
but worst of all, i get jealous when he's the one who's there

proconconpro @ 2008-12-09T19:49:00

2008-12-10T00:50:04Z

i found out i'm a high school graduate today

proconconpro @ 2008-12-09T04:00:00

2008-12-09T09:30:56Z

"solitude is un-american." - erica jong

"the fear of being alone with ourselves is... a feeling of embarrassment, bordering sometimes on terror at seeing a person at once so well known and so strange; we are afraid and run away. we thus miss the chance of listening to ourselves, and we continue to ignore our conscience." - erich fromm

"i was never less alone than when by myself." - edward gibbon

"solitude either develops the mental power, or renders men dull and vicious." - victor hugo

"it may be laid down as a position which will seldom deceive, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong." - samuel johnson

"i live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." - albert einstein

"I ONLY GO OUT TO GET ME A FRESH APPETITE FOR BEING ALONE." - lord byron

"WHAT A COMMENTARY ON OUR CIVILIZATION, WHEN BEING ALONE IS CONSIDERED SUSPECT; WHEN ONE HAS TO APOLOGIZE FOR IT, MAKE EXCUSES, HIDE THE FACT THAT ONE PRACTICES IT--LIKE SOME SECRET VICE!" - anne morrow lindbergh

"there is no free society without silence, without the internal and external spaces of solitude in which individual freedom can develop." - herbert marcuse

"THERE IS NO TRUE INTIMACY BETWEEN SOULS WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER'S SOLITUDE." - thomas merton

"one man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to lose himself. your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison to you." - friedrich neitzsche

"solitude vivifies; isolation kills." - joseph roux

"THE YOUNG SHOULD EARLY BE TRAINED TO BEAR BEING LEFT ALONE; FOR IT IS A SOURCE OF HAPPINESS AND PEACE OF MIND." - arthur schopenhauer

"OUR LANGUAGE HAS WISELY SENSED THE TWO SIDES OF MAN'S BEING ALONE. IT HAS CREATED THE WORD 'LONELINESS' TO EXPRESS THE PAIN OF BEING ALONE. AND IT HAS CREATED THE WORD 'SOLITUDE' TO EXPRESS THE GLORY OF BEING ALONE." - paul tillich

"IF YOU DON'T LIKE BEING IN YOUR OWN COMPANY, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK OTHERS WILL?" - anonymous

"who knows the world lives alone." - ali

"the departure from the world is regarded not as a fault, but as the first step into that noble path at the remotest turn of which illumination is to be won." - joseph campbell

"I LIVE IN SOLITUDE IN THE COUNTRY AND NOTICED HOW THE MONOTONY OF A QUEIT LIFE STIMULATES THE CREATIVE MIND." - albert einstein

"'he who seeks may easily get lost himself. it is a crime to go apart and be alone'--thus speaks the herd" - friedrich nietzsche

"if we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, courage. theses things are rarely produced by committees. everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself." - arthur m. schlesinger

"WE DO NOT YET KNOW WHEN BEING ALONE WILL LEAD TO CREATIVE 'SOCIAL, ARTISTIC, PHILOSOPHIC OR CHARACTEROLOGICAL PERFORMANCES' AND WHEN MENTAL ILLNESS WILL BE THE OUTCOME." - gregory zilboorg

"where there is sorrow there is holy ground." - oscar wilde

"if we're all alone, then we're all in that together."

proconconpro @ 2008-12-09T02:14:00

2008-12-09T07:28:08Z

"chin up." he said to the inflatable polar bear on the lawn, all lit up, spreading marketed, holiday cheer. he punched it and it fell onto its back; he thought of two things: a child falling down in a field, laughing at the clouds that lay before him, and an adult, looking upside down into a canyon, then falling into it.

proconconpro @ 2008-12-07T02:25:00

2008-12-07T07:26:02Z

"if we're all alone, then we're all together in that, too."

proconconpro @ 2008-12-06T22:29:00

2008-12-07T03:37:07Z

"so... why'd you do it?"
"well i've been writing a lot since i got sick and i like that. i can be proud of that." he gave me a vacant look, and i laughed. "so much for writing helping me mature, huh?"
"it still can. you should write about this."
"yeah, maybe i will." there was a long pause. the outdoor movie played across the street. a holiday movie - an old man on the telephone. i pretended to be interested. i waited.
"at least you won't cry over us." i turned and looked at him. he now looked at me the way he looked at everyone else, with that mask of coolness. all the emotion was gone from his eyes. i'd been digested. another pill to help pass the time. he didn't see it, because i didn't show it, i'm just as good an actor as him, but i wanted to cry right then. i wanted to believe in the sadness i felt, i wanted the world to see my disappointment, my loss. i lit up a cigarette and smiled my friendliest smile. "that's right." and then i walked away.
"later," he said.
"goodbye."

proconconpro @ 2008-12-05T22:17:00

2008-12-06T03:17:57Z

"The most important thing in acting is honesty: if you can fake that, you've got it made."