Solitude

Time alone with no distractions, the the moments between turning off the lights and falling asleep, the hours when you have only your own thoughts, only yourself, is something many people fear. It is a time when many people feel alone. It is a time when you cannot deny the truth of who you are and if that truth is unpleasant, it is a time when loneliness sets in.

Many people go about their life seeking distraction. Whether it’s hours spent in front of the television, immersion in online games, jumping from one relationship to another and losing themselves in them, or any of the hundreds of other external sources of focus they all serve a single purpose; to keep their thoughts focused on something other than themselves. Those people need to avoid being alone with themselves because they do not like who they are. They know they are not the person they want to be and rather than changing who they are they seek distractions from it. They live a lie because it is easier than facing the truth. They are the people who know what loneliness truly is because they do not have even themselves as friends and in the dark of night they cannot hide from themselves.

I am not one of them.

Over the last two years I have have very little time with only myself, only while laying in bed at night have I had the opportunity to spend time with me and even then I had worries outside of myself that occupied my mind. There was someone I cared about who needed me, my days were spent being there for her, and at night I worried about her as I worked through all the variables in her life seeking a way for things to be put right for her. She no longer has a need for me, and so over the last two months I have had the opportunity to spend time with me not only at night but throughout the day on a daily basis. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that time.

I spend my days physically active performing tasks that allow my mind to be turned inward, that give me the luxury of time with myself. Inside my head, disconnected from the world around me, I find true reality. That which we see, what we hear, what we experience with our senses in our daily lives is only an illusion. It is a false reality created by our perception. To one who is predisposed to see the good it is a jewel that merely needs polishing while to one predisposed to see the bad it is a quagmire from which one can never escape. Even to those wear neither rose colored glasses nor a veil made of ash there is still only the limited perception allowed by ones individual experiences and knowledge. The external world is real only on the surface of the viewers mind. True reality is the truth of who we are, the truth of our own nature, and exists only in the deepest recesses of the mind.

Each of us must find our own truth, our own reality, and to do that we must put aside the external and turn our eyes in. When we cast off our illusions of the world, and of ourselves, and seek within to find the reality of our own natures we begin the journey back to ourselves. When we find who we truly are and accept that person we can begin the process of changing the illusion of who we are so that it matches the reality and when that happens we are never again alone.

I know who I am. I know my strengths. I know my weaknesses. I know my limitations. Except when I am separated from myself, I am never alone. I know the truth of me and therefore I do not know loneliness.