Loneliness is multifaceted, comes in various strengths, flavors and shades, pastel and primary.
Not all forms are negative, require therapy or can be “fixed” by having someone pop in.
Your (my) unique blend is best embraced.
Denying or rejecting it, over time, will cost you. Identified and embraced they (the many forms of loneliness) proffer opportunities for learning, opportunities for grace, for reflection. They provide a springboard for diving inward, for self-assessment. Do it well and you will be able to say with Psalmist David, who more than glimpsed within himself and was able to proclaim that he was “fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Rejected or denied, it will surface as thick-skinned crassness, emotional plaque, relational arthritis.
Unaddressed loneliness will transform into stones of self-righteousness even the hardened pharisees could not bring themselves to hurl once they self-assessed (dove inward) and saw themselves reflected in the eyes of the adulterous woman of John 8.
Loneliness, in some forms, comes in time to all of our lives, acknowledged or not. Some live with it for years, and years, and years, turns them (us) into cynics and comedians and adult class-clowns, and mean politicians, devoid of empathy. It will turn you (and me) into that person whom you sense you can never really get to know.
Not all forms of loneliness are painful. Some are stunningly beautiful.
Everything pivots on how we deal with our unique blend of loneliness or permit it to deal with us.
My beautiful home is empty of my sons. Each has moved into adulthood and has a significant relationship and a career and a full life of his own. Both men earn their way, love their partner – one being a wife. Each son is becoming more and more proficient and involved in his career. I rejoice that they are men of substance, people of character. I rejoice in their accomplishments. I celebrate their absence. I rejoice in their fullness of life (and even their expected struggles) they’re enjoying beyond this house, this address, this zip-code. The now-vacant domestic territories which were theirs in our shared home leave me room for the quiet joy of mission accomplished. Their absence, the alone-ness I feel, thrills me. I love it when they visit. I love it when they stay overnight, I love it when they call as they do usually several times a week. But, I’m really glad they don’t live here anymore and I know they are, too.
There is the loneliness of effective leadership.
Give yourself a few minutes and your mind will flood with the men and women whose leadership cost them everything, shaped the world as we know it. Their stands, opinions, decisions, also rewarded them with lives of isolation and pain as they made decisions popular and unpopular. They knew it came with the role and did it anyway. Great leadership (of nations, little-league soccer, city hall, the school board, your HOA) will give authentic leaders lasting tastes of life’s beauty and brutality, the inseparable rewards and “punishments” (sometimes even death) of sound and moral and courageous leadership.
There’s loneliness that comes from being in a crowd.
Most of us experience this and accommodate it when we do. It’s hard to sense we belong in some circles, because…… well….. we don’t. Nobody fits everywhere. (Beware if you do.) Where you don’t (fit) aloofness may travel in all directions, toward you and from you. These times are usually short-lived. Most of us accept and understand this kind loneliness can usually politely escape it if necessary.
Perhaps the hardest of all forms of loneliness lodge within the wake of significant loss.
Where there once was somebody, somebody whom we loved, somebody with whom we shared life, someone with whom we shared decades, who’s gone. Then, there is the loneliness that comes from indifference: the I-don’t-care-if-you-live-or-die loneliness, the severest cut of all.
You will find the best in others ……. if you look for the best in others. I refer to the best in others as their gold. It’s generosity, kindness, wholesomeness, creativity, and friendliness. These qualities live within all others (no exceptions). Such gold is available to be found. It comes with the human package.
There’s only one condition.
You have to be willing to acknowledge that there is gold within you and be willing to find it within yourself first before you will be able to see it in others. It may be hiding behind the shame and guilt and honed skills of deception you have had to download for protection and survival.
I am aware that “comes with the human package” is quite a claim.
Some will doubt. They will tell stories of those whom they found to be no-good to the core.
The gold within some is easy to find – not too much digging required.
For others it can be deeply buried in shame, humiliation, guilt, deception and in a belief that cruelty or violence or deception are, or were, necessary for survival.
“No-good to the core” has its reasons, its history.
But, the gold is still there.
It cannot be eliminated.
Given time to be heard, time for trust to build, time to tell his or her story, I know that who some regard as the worst of humanity are often bearers of the purest of gold.
The Mercury (this begins my 25th year of Monday to Friday Mercury columns)……..
It is a die-hard custom for columnist to “reflect” on the past year. Here are broad principles I have found to be true. I hope, readers in Southern Africa and elsewhere, that you will share yours with me:
Life is simultaneously beautiful and brutal. It is wiser to embrace both as fully as is humanly possible. Attempting to reject life’s inevitable brutality seems to delay deep appreciation and awareness of its beauty.
Generosity, kindness, openness to all others are more powerful than any politician or army.
My enemies unknowingly serve me, make me think, make me honor my life with greater effort and dedication. Thank you. I owe you. I long to repay you with grace, respect, and honor.
If I think my sons and their friends cannot teach me anything I soon discover I indeed have a lot to learn.
The most difficult people, the most demanding clients, the most trying customers, are those who offer me the most powerful opportunities to grow, learn, and exercise love and grace.
People do what they want to do. No finely designed intervention or battery of therapeutic skills can stop a person doing what he or she really wants to do.
The minute I blame anyone for anything, I regress. The minute I take responsibility for myself, I grow.
There is brokenness that leads to re-building, improved character, renewed strength, refreshed creativity.
I believe this capacity lives within us all.
I have seen this with my own eyes; men and women build beautiful lives after devastation, loss, betrayal and untold grief.
There’s brokenness that leads to bitterness, regret, desire for revenge and retribution.
It, too, lives in us all.
Stubbornness, coldness of heart, perhaps based in a desire for justification, provokes a tough journey.
I’ve seen men and women “go stubborn” and “go bitter” and be lead by the nose to destinations unbearable.
Brokeness, some, not all, is inevitable, comes packaged with life, time, age, growth and misplaced or misunderstood levels of trust.
Some comes as a result of pride and selfishness — or the rather simple but trustworthy principle of reaping what we’ve sown.
What will you do with yours?
Your brokenness?
What will I do with mine?
Our response — and it need not be immediate for wisdom is seldom knee-jerk — is a crucial choice.
It is not an easy choice, but choice is where it all begins – a little like Robert Frost’s “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”
A choice to build and learn, a choice not to defend or attack, a choice to love in the face of rejection, a choice to give people what they ask for, a choice to engage, or not – perhaps the choice less travelled, will make the difference.
Everyday, everytime, under all circumstances, no exceptions, you (and I) get to decide what you (and I) will bring to every, yes, every, interaction.
Yes, this one, right here, right now at Wimpy, the bank, with my sons, with your daughter, at this busy traffic intersection.
We have a question we are answering with our behavior 24/7/365: Will you (and I) be agents of love and forgiveness and long-suffering, or will you (and I) settle for the usual combative or irritable or unloving behaviors that seem to come so naturally and easily to so many?
In the heat of the moment – the bad traffic, the wait at the bank, the poor service in the restaurant when you are hungry, whatever – does not make you (or me) unloving or unkind, it reveals who we are.
Challenging circumstances expose, they do not cause.
They reveal.
Love and loving responses take planning, require decisions long before decisions have to be made or require or evoke a response.
Love and forgiveness can only come from you (and me) if love and forgiveness are living within you (and me) already.
What’s within you (and me), will come pouring out, no matter what the circumstances.
You will know your young matriculating adult sons and daughters have transitioned into adulthood when:
Your efforts as parents are acknowledged, appreciated, articulated and somewhat or approximately understood. They are aware of the commitments you made to facilitate their arrival at this juncture in their lives.
Your shortcomings as parents are not denied but are not used or held against you as weapons or as excuses for thier own shortcomings. Your sons and daughters are living without blame.
“Thank you” and “please” comes easy and both are expressed near – to you, to family, to loved ones – and far – to strangers and servers and to those who can do nothing for your young adults in return.
You are able to recognize there’s an acceptance of “the way things are” and that within the way things are there exist multiple opportunities and challenges. Some challenges are to be addressed and solved, some will not. Your budding adult is identifying what it means to “go with the flow of life” and when flow ought to be resisted.
Your young adults respond to your calls and texts because they come from you. They may “ghost” others but choose to respond, when possible, to you. They recognize that as parents, you occupy a unique place in their lives, deserving of appropriate and efficient responses.
Learn the ART of living fully in your own head, and only, in your own head. Think for yourself. Try not to interfere when others think for themselves even when they express thoughts you’d never think. It’s allowed. MINDing yourown business, avoiding crossovers, is a crucial and necessary art in the empowering business. Like everything, it begins at home. Your spouse, adult sons and daughters, your parents, all the adults you know have unique brains capable of their own thinking. You may find this harder than it sounds if you are accustomed to living in multiple heads other than your own, and in yourown.
Why is this important? It’s fundamental to trust, growth, respect, equality, mutuality and all those good things. I’d suggest it would be highly disrespectful of me to assume I am better at doing your thinking than you are at doing yourthinking. If I focus my mind on my business and trust you will do the same, the meeting of our minds has the potential to enhance both of us. Conversely, if every time we talk or spend time together you cross over in my head it is likely much of my energy will be spent, not in thinking and exploring with you, but in attempts to safeguard my head-territory.
One of my very favorite pieces of art. It’s from Gorky Park, Moscow. Street artist — 1992.
Allow yourself to experience your emotions – even the extremes. Don’t cover or hide from your grief. If you are feeling joy, express it. Avoid constructing a wall or barrier between you and your emotions. The day may come when you cannot see over the barrier, let alone climb the wall.
Take time to hear as many “sides” to every story. Don’t rush to judgment. There are usually 7, 8, even 10 sides to every story. Hear them all. Things are often not as they appear. Listeners take all the time needed to hear things out.
As far as you’re capable, go back and make right where you have failed. Often, this may be impossible. Make a list of your regrets, determine never to move in those directions again. Learn, recover, learn recover.
Even if it’s not in your usual habit, try to talk more to people you care about about the things you care about. Don’t rehash hobby horses. Let people into unexpressed parts of your thinking.
Notice your indifference. This is where you’ve been unmoved, unaffected, by things that ought to move everybody, ought to affect everybody. Allow the world about you, near and afar, to have its impact on you.
One corner of my home office……. you’re welcome here.
You may earn more than I do and live in a nicer house – but our loneliness is probably the same. When it rips us apart it doesn’t really matter who has the most cash or the nicest home. Loneliness doesn’t care where we live or about our financial status. Invite me in – perhaps we can be friends and ease our common pain.
You may be more educated than I am and you may have graduated from a respected university – but I know that if you regard anyone, anywhere with contempt, your education has given you little worth knowing. I may not be very bright by your standards but I do know that truly educated people never use it as a weapon. Talk to me – I might be able to teach you a thing or two.
You may be more travelled than I am and can talk about places I have not heard of or could afford to visit in my wildest dreams – but if travel has made you contemptuous of your homeland and its peoples then travel has not done its finer work in you. Citizens of the world find beauty and wonder everywhere. Come to my house – my culture is as interesting as any you will find on any distant shore.
There is nothing like a good listener for feeding the soul.
A good listener determines there will be no distractions — no phones, text checking, no dings or app notifications or glances to see the time — and will offer complete and uninterrupted and undiluted attention to the speaker.
A good listener listens, says very very little except may offer occasional brief words of encouragement like “tell me more” or “go back to the beginning if you want” or “go into as much detail as you think will be helpful” or “could you tell me that again so it’s clearer for me.”
The good listener knows listening and any attempts at multitasking — even the most subtle — distract the speaker and obliterate listening. A good listener gets all the potential impediments to listening out of the way before sitting down to listen.
The good listener knows a listener’s inner-noise —- things the listener is refusing to hear or address from within — will emerge and sabotage attempts at hearing others and so addresses unresolved personal matters as much as possible so others may encounter a clear-headed listener.
The good listener does not formulate replies or develop counterpoints while listening and does not one-up the speaker with the listener’s own experiences whether they may appear to the listener to be helpful or not.
A good listener sees, hears, knows, acknowledges the speaker by listening — the most powerful and tangible expression of love.
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