* YOU ARE NOTHING BUT ALONE

“We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.”

ORSON WELLS

It struck me the other day, I'm not really sure why. I was riding along in a car heading up to Quebec City with one of my clients and their Communications Director. It was funny as i sat there in the back of the limo looking out the window at the passing landscape i was struck by how alone i felt even as i listened and participated in a conversation with two people sitting no more then a couple of feet away.

I am not completely sure but lately i have had this overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I cannot really say where exactly it stems from. I have always enjoyed my solitude. I also enjoy the company of others. There has never really been any significant periods where i enjoyed more of one or the other. I have a small core group of friends and an average group of acquaintances. I guess if you were to ask me if i prefer being around people or being alone i would probably say alone more often then with people. As a general rule though i would not always want to be alone (stranded on a deserted Island). The funny thing is this feeling of loneliness is not from being alone but from feeling it all the time even when in the company of those i enjoy.

Maybe its normal, maybe some of you get the same feeling from time to time. I am wondering though where it comes from and why lately i am haunted by it. Perhaps it is because i recently had my relationship end with a woman i admired and enjoyed very much. It wasn't an ugly split, no anger, no bitterness. Simply a mutual agreement to move on without each other. We are still friends and i see her rather regularly. Maybe as i get older and i see less and less of my children as "they" get older and start developing their own friendship circles and social life. It could be out of missing them. I am not sure if that is part of it but I'm sure in some way it is. Perhaps its the new project i started almost a month ago. It could be the new people, the new environment, the new challenges. I can't say for sure. Its hard to explain, its like something is missing. The best way i can put it is when you walk into a room in a home and you look around and for no apparent reason your struck by the idea that something is missing. You can stand there for along time trying to put your finger on it but you just can't pinpoint it. It could be due to the fact that my Ex has a new relationship, ah no that's not it!

I knew some day your runnin' would be through
And you'd think back on me and you
And your love would be strong
You'd forget all the bad and think only of all the laughs that we had
And you'd wanna come home
Now it ain't hard feelings or nothin' sugar
That ain't what's got me singing this song
It's just nobody knows baby where love goes
But when it goes it's gone gone

When you're alone you're alone
When you're alone you ain't nothing but alone

Bruce Springsteen

Does loneliness and a sense of something missing go together? Can you be happy and still be lonely? Can you go through life missing something? Always to be looking for what is missing. Is missing simply a state of mind, a belief that there has to be more to it all then what we currently have? Is it missing someone or something? Does it take "someone" to make you complete ( the Jerry McGuire line "you complete me")Does it take "something" to complete us. Like money, or ownership of a home, a car a boat, a physical object. What does it take for you to feel not alone or not missing something? I'm not sure i understand any of this to be honest. Some of these questions are legitimate, some are simply rhetorical. It doesn't help however with the dilemma i now face.

Part of me believes that no matter how much we have and how many "someones" there are in our lives we are still all ultimately alone. When you lay down at night and your thoughts wander to success, happiness, failures, regrets, we are at that moment truly alone with just ourselves. Those images dancing through our minds are uniquely and exclusively ours. We either built them, or had them built for us by others. In the end thought they belong to us. Yes perhaps someone who was in your life or is still in your life and who impacted it is at the very same time contemplating the very same thing you are. It doesn't change the fact that your still alone. In fact in a world driven by a rat race mentality, pushed on by evolving technology we are confronted with loneliness more then we realize. I think in some ways these very same elements which invade our lives on a daily basis are in fact making us more alone. Are taking something away from us, are making us miss something.

When you think about it you start to realize the very lack of human contact. Banking over the Internet, drive through fast food, chat and messenger, automated telephone services, home delivery and shopping over the Internet. All of this and much more has greatly reduced and in some cases eliminated altogether people to people interaction. I'm not saying that any of this has anything to do with my current state of loneliness. Actually i don't think it does. But if your feeling lonely or are missing something perhaps there in lies some answers. It is however a fact of reality in today's society so maybe it does in my case play some small role. More likely though for me its about missing something fundamental, about the true needs we have today to feel part of the story, part of the process. The pages turn so fast that one can often get the feeling that your speed reading with no qualifications to do so. That your only catching glimpses of the pictures which minimize the importance of the actual foundation of the story.

There is also the simple fact that when your with other people everyone seems much more in tuned to themselves then their surroundings. We can talk to someone but never really hear what they are saying. Many times if the conversation is "heavy" we switch it off so as not to be pushed to actually contribute in any way to that person or their challenges. We can be present in a group and feel like a complete outsider simply by the current events in our lives which go unnoticed by those we are close to. We can be alone while being in the company of others without any effort. It is surprising how when something significantly bad happens to someone in our entourage the type of reactions we have. "Man i never knew it was that bad" what happened? I'm flabbergasted". "How come were only finding this out now", "if we had known we would have done something". Those words sound familiar? Sure they do! I personally have said them many times in relationship to my friends. In hindsight when i challenged myself to analyses if i had really been paying attention i often arrived at a pretty negative conclusion of myself. I think that in part explains the feeling of loneliness when we realize that not only have we perhaps not been engaged ourselves but that we have in fact not been listening.

I'm not sure about any of it. The only certainty for me at this very moment is its just me and this keyboard and i'm going to keep on looking for what is missing and try and find the answer to why i feel alone but for the mean time...

"When you're alone you're alone.
When you're alone you ain't nothing but alone.