There really is no need for loneliness

[dragon]

Loneliness, in the opinion of a GP speaking on the radio last week, is lethal. As a killer, he said, it is as deadly as smoking. The people most at risk from the effects of loneliness are the elderly. The GP listed some of the symptoms associated with loneliness. I can’t remember them all, but depression and anxiety were among them. There followed a brief discussion of how to reduce loneliness among the elderly. Restoring people’s sense of community including, e.g. setting up befriending schemes, was mentioned.

As usual, medical science fails to see the bigger picture.

To regard loneliness as a condition, as a cause of symptoms such as depression, is wrong. Loneliness is itself a symptom. Loneliness is a symptom of autism and as such is only one of a whole raft of other symptoms, including depression.

(Autism itself is also, in fact, a symptom, not a cause. Human society has become addicted to the drug power. Autism is a consequence of this addiction and is endemic in human society.)

Loneliness, then, is a symptom of autism — hardly surprising since people who are autistic lose their awareness of other people and of their environment. The result of this loss of awareness is that they become more and more isolated from other people as well as their environment.

Healthy people i.e. people who are not addicted to power, do not experience loneliness. (Healthy people communicate well and interact fully with their environment.) The ultimate cure for loneliness, therefore, is for people to come off their addiction to power.

As to alleviating loneliness by e.g. befriending schemes, then what I have to say is this: “Houston, we have a problem!”

This problem is encapsulated in the expressed sentiment (also from the radio): “Why bother going out into the world when I can bring the world into my living room with Google.” In other words, people are no longer active participants in life, but have become mere spectators.

It was not always so. Read any Jane Austen novel. People in the 18th century had active social lives. They visited each other, they communicated face-to-face, they lives an active life within their community. They did not wait for life to come into their living room, they went out and found it.

People in the 18th century had accomplishments. Young ladies would be expected to play a musical instrument and sing, to paint or draw, to be accomplished needlewomen, to speak a foreign language, to dance, and, in general, to be a social asset welcomed at every social gathering, small or large.

People of whatever class made their own entertainment. Today, however, people have been persuaded that listening to the music of an expert is preferable to making their own. People today have been persuaded that it is better to read the works of professional writers rather than to make up stories themselves, much less write encyclopaedias etc… (A child could write an encyclopaedia but by the time the same child has reached maturity they have lost that ability, they do not see the point, they feel inadequate etc, etc.) People today have been persuaded that it is better to buy or look at someone else’s art, a real artist’s art, than to create their own artwork. People today have been persuaded to become armchair travelers instead of going out and experiencing the world for themselves. An active social life? Who needs something so primitive when we have TV and the internet???

So autism i.e. the addiction to power, has reduced people to spectators of, not participants in, life. No surprise, then, that loneliness is increasingly becoming a problem in modern society.

Living On My Own (Freddie Mercury)

Dee do dee do day
Dee do dee do dee do dee do day oh

Sometimes I feel I’m gonna break down and cry, so lonely
Nowhere to go, **nothing to do with my time
I get lonely, so lonely, living on my own.

Sometimes I feel I’m always walking too fast, so lonely
And everything is coming down on me, down on me, I go crazy
Oh so crazy, living on my own.

Dee do de de, dee do de de
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

Sometimes I feel nobody gives me no warning
Find my head is always up in the clouds in a dreamworld
It’s not easy, living on my own, my own, my own

Dee do de de (lonely), dee do de de (lonely)
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

C’mon baby

Dee do de de, dee do de de
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

** Yes, Freddie Mercury understood the source of his loneliness — pity he was unable to remedy his situation, pity people are unable to see or appreciate that simply to take up loads of hobbies and activities would cure their loneliness — and much else besides!

[Orbie]

@dragon

Loneliness, in the opinion of a GP speaking on the radio last week, is lethal. As a killer, he said, it is as deadly as smoking. The people most at risk from the effects of loneliness are the elderly. The GP listed some of the symptoms associated with loneliness. I can’t remember them all, but depression and anxiety were among them. There followed a brief discussion of how to reduce loneliness among the elderly. Restoring people’s sense of community including, e.g. setting up befriending schemes, was mentioned.

As usual, medical science fails to see the bigger picture.

To regard loneliness as a condition, as a cause of symptoms such as depression, is wrong. Loneliness is itself a symptom. Loneliness is a symptom of autism and as such is only one of a whole raft of other symptoms, including depression.

(Autism itself is also, in fact, a symptom, not a cause. Human society has become addicted to the drug power. Autism is a consequence of this addiction and is endemic in human society.)

Loneliness, then, is a symptom of autism — hardly surprising since people who are autistic lose their awareness of other people and of their environment. The result of this loss of awareness is that they become more and more isolated from other people as well as their environment.

Healthy people i.e. people who are not addicted to power, do not experience loneliness. (Healthy people communicate well and interact fully with their environment.) The ultimate cure for loneliness, therefore, is for people to come off their addiction to power.

As to alleviating loneliness by e.g. befriending schemes, then what I have to say is this: “Houston, we have a problem!”

This problem is encapsulated in the expressed sentiment (also from the radio): “Why bother going out into the world when I can bring the world into my living room with Google.” In other words, people are no longer active participants in life, but have become mere spectators.

It was not always so. Read any Jane Austen novel. People in the 18th century had active social lives. They visited each other, they communicated face-to-face, they lives an active life within their community. They did not wait for life to come into their living room, they went out and found it.

People in the 18th century had accomplishments. Young ladies would be expected to play a musical instrument and sing, to paint or draw, to be accomplished needlewomen, to speak a foreign language, to dance, and, in general, to be a social asset welcomed at every social gathering, small or large.

People of whatever class made their own entertainment. Today, however, people have been persuaded that listening to the music of an expert is preferable to making their own. People today have been persuaded that it is better to read the works of professional writers rather than to make up stories themselves, much less write encyclopaedias etc… (A child could write an encyclopaedia but by the time the same child has reached maturity they have lost that ability, they do not see the point, they feel inadequate etc, etc.) People today have been persuaded that it is better to buy or look at someone else’s art, a real artist’s art, than to create their own artwork. People today have been persuaded to become armchair travelers instead of going out and experiencing the world for themselves. An active social life? Who needs something so primitive when we have TV and the internet???

So autism i.e. the addiction to power, has reduced people to spectators of, not participants in, life. No surprise, then, that loneliness is increasingly becoming a problem in modern society.

Living On My Own (Freddie Mercury)

Dee do dee do day
Dee do dee do dee do dee do day oh

Sometimes I feel I’m gonna break down and cry, so lonely
Nowhere to go, **nothing to do with my time
I get lonely, so lonely, living on my own.

Sometimes I feel I’m always walking too fast, so lonely
And everything is coming down on me, down on me, I go crazy
Oh so crazy, living on my own.

Dee do de de, dee do de de
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

Sometimes I feel nobody gives me no warning
Find my head is always up in the clouds in a dreamworld
It’s not easy, living on my own, my own, my own

Dee do de de (lonely), dee do de de (lonely)
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

C’mon baby

Dee do de de, dee do de de
I don’t have no time for no monkey business
Dee do de de, dee do de de
I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, yeah
Got to be some good times ahead

** Yes, Freddie Mercury understood the source of his loneliness — pity he was unable to remedy his situation, pity people are unable to see or appreciate that simply to take up loads of hobbies and activities would cure their loneliness — and much else besides!

   There needs to be a larger take on the issues of loneliness.  I disagree with a categorical statement decrying a need for loneliness.  J. Khrishnamurti talks at length of the value of loneliness, Colin Wilson's seminal work covers connections between loneliness and mystical powers.  These kinds of powers are not those, which may be attributed to the negative features of autism, however there is commonality, as with newly ascribed spectrum relations between co-morbid classifications, where symptoms are arbitrarily mixed with classification.  

The general thesis is for all practical purposes works as a framework for the idea that there is a lot of lonely people out there, especially among the elderly population, however, it is within the the general that the specific manifests as it’s opposite.

The very value of alone-ness makes it an un habitable terrain for most. The center and the periphery may not be contradictory, but the perceived negation is a necessary epistomological-ontological relationship. To give an example, the idea of the soul, has been a necessary correlate of the material world. The antimony is necessarily contradictory in terms of the way the structural meaning field of reality is interpreted. This has to do with the dual nature of our physiognomy.

As a consequence, in the absolute sense, there is a need for loneliness.
Another argument follows the trail of David Riesman, the sociologist of the late fifties, early sixties, who supported the then evolving counter culture, by presenting the view, that it is the fabric of the over-consuming commercial society, which produces the “Lonely Crowd”

I do beg the author of this forum to overlook the fact, that i may be going beyond the scope, or the intent of the OP, however, it would have been ne’er impossible to agree with the general framework, only have to disagree within specific terms.

[Moreno]

@dragon

Loneliness, in the opinion of a GP speaking on the radio last week, is lethal. As a killer, he said, it is as deadly as smoking. The people most at risk from the effects of loneliness are the elderly. The GP listed some of the symptoms associated with loneliness. I can’t remember them all, but depression and anxiety were among them. There followed a brief discussion of how to reduce loneliness among the elderly. Restoring people’s sense of community including, e.g. setting up befriending schemes, was mentioned.

As usual, medical science fails to see the bigger picture.

To regard loneliness as a condition, as a cause of symptoms such as depression, is wrong. Loneliness is itself a symptom. Loneliness is a symptom of autism and as such is only one of a whole raft of other symptoms, including depression.

So presumably we are using autism to cover not simply the diagnosis, but a more widespread pattern. IOW it is a metaphor.

(Autism itself is also, in fact, a symptom, not a cause. Human society has become addicted to the drug power. Autism is a consequence of this addiction and is endemic in human society.)

Except literal autism.

Loneliness, then, is a symptom of autism — hardly surprising since people who are autistic lose their awareness of other people and of their environment.

Though actual autistics simply do not develope awareness back as infants. Or the same kinds of awareness. In some ways they can be mroe aware.

The result of this loss of awareness is that they become more and more isolated from other people as well as their environment.

Healthy people i.e. people who are not addicted to power, do not experience loneliness. (Healthy people communicate well and interact fully with their environment.) The ultimate cure for loneliness, therefore, is for people to come off their addiction to power.

As to alleviating loneliness by e.g. befriending schemes, then what I have to say is this: “Houston, we have a problem!”

This problem is encapsulated in the expressed sentiment (also from the radio): “Why bother going out into the world when I can bring the world into my living room with Google.” In other words, people are no longer active participants in life, but have become mere spectators.

So someone said this on the radio - and it doesn’t sound like a lonely person, though they may be alone - and this is the reason people in general are lonely.

It was not always so. Read any Jane Austen novel. People in the 18th century had active social lives. They visited each other, they communicated face-to-face, they lives an active life within their community. They did not wait for life to come into their living room, they went out and found it.

Jane Austen novels were about a particular class of people, almost entirely with a lot of money in larger households. She wrote about what she knew, though she was not on the rich end of landed gentry, but still wealthy, and further since interpersonal Dynamics were utterly central to her novels, and generally through a larger Group of characters, well, it should be no surprise the people she depicts have complicated social interactions - of course any number of them might have been lonely. So fiction about a particular class - a Group that likely would keep their elderly at home and have the means to make them as comfortable as possible, for example - is used as evidence that people in that Century were not lonely. Other 18th Century novels did on the other hand deal with lonliness and lonely characters, but these are, after all just fiction. Wait a second…

People in the 18th century had accomplishments. Young ladies would be expected to play a musical instrument and sing, to paint or draw, to be accomplished needlewomen, to speak a foreign language, to dance, and, in general, to be a social asset welcomed at every social gathering, small or large.

IN that class, a class by the way, supported heavily by slavery. They had the free time women in other classes (and other countries) did not have, to pursue these things because of surplus wealth coming out of, amongst other places, the West Indies. There in the West Indies the non White women were working their assess off and probably had Little time to learn the harpsicord. But even closer to Austen on the farms, in London, probably the majority of Young ladies were already having Children and taking care of them or working or taking care of younger siblings.

People of whatever class made their own entertainment. Today, however, people have been persuaded that listening to the music of an expert is preferable to making their own.

I do see this trend, though there is also the whole DIY youtube home recording studio, garage band and so on thing also.

People today have been persuaded that it is better to read the works of professional writers rather than to make up stories themselves, much less write encyclopaedias etc…

Young ladies were not exactly expected to write stories back in the 18th Century. And it should further be stressed that these accomplishments were not taken seriously, in the sense that a male artist or Composer would be. It was part of middle and mainly upper class Girls ornamentation. Of course it is great that many Young women got to do these things, however utterly controlled and rigid their training was in their areas of accomplishment, but it was seen as a part of the bride to bes Beauty and shininess as a wife.

(A child could write an encyclopaedia but by the time the same child has reached maturity they have lost that ability, they do not see the point, they feel inadequate etc, etc.) People today have been persuaded that it is better to buy or look at someone else’s art, a real artist’s art, than to create their own artwork. People today have been persuaded to become armchair travelers instead of going out and experiencing the world for themselves. An active social life? Who needs something so primitive when we have TV and the internet???

Seeint the World for themselves would have been an utter luxury in the 18th Century, even for fairly well off people. But where I agree with this is at a more banal level. Today people do not even see the people on the subway train. They see the screens on their phones. I do Think that digital media are making Everything more shallow. But I don’t Think this covers the range of reasons why people get lonely. And the digital addicts seem pretty pleased to be living in their distracted shallow states. Elderly people, much less likely to be addicted to digital media, it seems to me are suffering lonliness often for reasons that have nothing to do with what you blame people for. Nor all sorts of other people.

And really, do you Think that 18th Century women who ended up being married off to boring assholes were not lonely? And that’s in the wealthy classes Austen focused on. I mean, seriously. You’ve jammed everyone into a single slot, judged them harshly and dismissed anyone who is lonely as not only causing their own problems but further being addicted to Power.

Creative people, people who do want to make their own art, who are yearning for real and Deep Connections, often have periods of lonliness. If they read your post some of the Young ones may conclude they should be like their shallow, flitty, digital addicted consumer peers… the Group that would likely get your stamp of no negative emotion approval.

So autism i.e. the addiction to power, has reduced people to spectators of, not participants in, life. No surprise, then, that loneliness is increasingly becoming a problem in modern society.

** Yes, Freddie Mercury understood the source of his loneliness — pity he was unable to remedy his situation, pity people are unable to see or appreciate that simply to take up loads of hobbies and activities would cure their loneliness — and much else besides!

Was he unable to remedy his situation? He was a pretty social fella and well able to communicate. He did die of aids. He certainly attained accomplishments. Anyway all that is tangential, but I found it odd you decided things about him due to what a character in a song he wrote is singing. That he had those feelings, pretty likely, that they summed up his Life, not from what I’v read.

It seems like once again you are judging people for having certain feelings. And you know what the cause of their problem is - it is their fault - and labeling them autistic and addicted to Power. Perhaps elsewhere you have explained how these are the same thing. You seem to be idealizing the 18th Century based on one 18th Century writer’s really quite specific and limited focus. No need to even look at, odd as it might seem to suggest, non-fiction works looking at the sociology of the 18th Century. There seems to be Little compassion, no recognition of the complex causes that can lead to lonliness - even in people with accomplishments who are social. The fact that the elderly were generally taken care of directly by family and living with them then could not possibly be a factor, because this might not be in the elderly person’s Control, and it is all their fault if they are lonely, so it cannot be a cause. For example.

Cold, Cold. And, it seems to me, hitting people when they are down. Even if your insights were correct, there is so much poison in the medicine I am quite sure people will not be able to swallow those insights.

[Ierrellus]

I am old, lonely and am not autistic.

[dragon]

@obe

   There needs to be a larger take on the issues of loneliness.  I disagree with a categorical statement decrying a need for loneliness.  J. Khrishnamurti talks at length of the value of loneliness, Colin Wilson's seminal work covers connections between loneliness and mystical powers.  These kinds of powers are not those, which may be attributed to the negative features of autism, however there is commonality, as with newly ascribed spectrum relations between co-morbid classifications, where symptoms are arbitrarily mixed with classification.  

The general thesis is for all practical purposes works as a framework for the idea that there is a lot of lonely people out there, especially among the elderly population, however, it is within the the general that the specific manifests as it’s opposite.

The very value of alone-ness makes it an un habitable terrain for most. The center and the periphery may not be contradictory, but the perceived negation is a necessary epistomological-ontological relationship. To give an example, the idea of the soul, has been a necessary correlate of the material world. The antimony is necessarily contradictory in terms of the way the structural meaning field of reality is interpreted. This has to do with the dual nature of our physiognomy.

As a consequence, in the absolute sense, there is a need for loneliness.
Another argument follows the trail of David Riesman, the sociologist of the late fifties, early sixties, who supported the then evolving counter culture, by presenting the view, that it is the fabric of the over-consuming commercial society, which produces the “Lonely Crowd”

I do beg the author of this forum to overlook the fact, that i may be going beyond the scope, or the intent of the OP, however, it would have been ne’er impossible to agree with the general framework, only have to disagree within specific terms.

I’m afraid your Orphic prognostications, obe, can only lead you into a jungle of competing ideas where there are no clear paths and no final winners — not a practical conclusion when considering the problem of living.

I prefer to take a down-to-earth, human approach. Think about life. Think about what makes it good and about what makes it bad. Think about what makes you want to go on living and what makes you feel you’d rather cop out. There is no way, in simple human terms, that loneliness can be seen as anything other than bad. Note: I am not talking about being alone, which can be a desirable state for periods of time. Loneliness is something quite different and derives from disability.

PS: like your poem in your signature.

[dragon]

@Ierrellus

I am old, lonely and am not autistic.

To what do you ascribe your loneliness?

[dragon]

@Moreno

Cold, Cold. And, it seems to me, hitting people when they are down. Even if your insights were correct, there is so much poison in the medicine I am quite sure people will not be able to swallow those insights.

Yes, indeed I am a cold fish. I’ve often been told so. What people mean is: I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve and I am not susceptible to emotional manipulation — my God, how can I get to her; I’ve tried everything and I can’t get a response? Dear oh dear, there’s nothing more inconvenient in this power addicted society than someone who cannot be manipulated — sounds of teeth grinding!

Hitting people when they are down? What kind of a fool do you take me for? Who in their right minds is going to hit anybody when they are upright and strong — for goodness’ sakes, they might hit back! They might give as good as or even better than they get!

Poison? I feel I have to point out to you, though I’m sure you know it already and just slipped your mind for a moment, that all medicines are poisons — it’s all in the dosage. A little bit of poison does you good, as in the old adage “What’s your poison?”. If I have a fault, and I will ready admit to it, I do not offer the spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

[nano-bug]

I sometimes wonder if loneliness is not the problem. My expectation that I should be anything other than alone, maybe that’s my problem. I can never really know, as in experience, the thoughts of the other. So separated am I from that experience, I’d be just as right to assume the thoughts of the other don’t exist. I prefer to think of others as real with real thoughts. But that preference is different than being “one with” the other. I can’t do that. I need to stop expecting that will happen. There is no god, when god is the only thing.

[Ierrellus]

@dragon

@Ierrellus

I am old, lonely and am not autistic.

To what do you ascribe your loneliness?

death of friends and relatives
not being able to do what I once did
obsolescence
being alone

[dragon]

@Ierrellus

@dragon

@Ierrellus

I am old, lonely and am not autistic.

To what do you ascribe your loneliness?

death of friends and relatives
not being able to do what I once did
obsolescence
being alone

These are not causes of loneliness for a healthy person. For myself, I quite deliberately cut myself off from my old friends and from all my family around 6 years ago when I moved house (I am well into middle age). This is no way caused or even hinted at the possibility of loneliness. It simply is not an issue. My former occupations have now moved on such that I would no longer be employable. Not a problem. I am not as physically fit as I once was. Not a problem. being alone is something I choose from time to time. To be healthy is to be threatened by being inundated by people and things that want one’s attention. My problem, if I have one, is to provide myself with sufficient privacy and to defend myself emotionally from the demands of “friends”. This is what it is to be healthy.

[LaughingMan]

There are two types of loneliness. One where people seek and bask in it by choice.

The other kind that is forced onto people not of their own will as a form of social alienation or in many cases disenfranchisement. Think social exile.

You need to outline which kind of loneliness you are speaking of.

[dragon]

@Tyler Durden

There are two types of loneliness. One where people seek and bask in it by choice.

The other kind that is forced onto people not of their own will as a form of social alienation or in many cases disenfranchisement. Think social exile.

You need to outline which kind of loneliness you are speaking of.

Loneliness is down to the person themselves. I am never lonely, even when alone, because everybody is my friend. That is nothing to do with what they think of me, they might even hate me and wish to do me harm — that is neither here nor there, they are still my friend. That is because it is my state of mind. In fact, if you are of the right state of mind, social alienation is not an issue because it just does not happen. Much of what happens to a person is down to their own attitude towards the world and their own behavior towards other people. I do not mean that to avoid social alienation you have to be sweetie-sweetie — that won’t work. It is something much deeper, something much more fundamental. Essentially you have to be natural and behave naturally. Any hint of putting on an act and you damn yourself.

[Magnus_Anderson]

Power is synonymous with health. Weakness, the opposite of power, is synonymous with illness.

Food is a form power, for example. When you eat, you become strong, which is to say, powerful, which is to say, you become healthy. When you don’t eat, you become weak, you become unhealthy.

So can you tell me now, how did you manage to turn this fact on its head?

You say that autism is an “addiction to power”. Well then, I suppose that you mean something very specific when you say “addiction to power”. Perhaps what you mean by power has nothing to do with power; perhaps what you mean by power is the opposite of power; perhaps what you actually mean is weakness.

Modern slaves (i.e. emancipated slaves) have a very funny conception of power. For them, power is a symbol. For example, for a slave, to be powerful means to be popular or to be rich. But money and fame are mere symptoms – they may or may not signify a powerful man. It is possible to be rich and famous and still be a weakling.

Modern people are sick not because they are autists, or because they are “addicted to power”, but because they are slaves.

But what does it mean to be a slave? To be a slave means to have a certain kind of habits, a kind of habits we may refer to as “slavish” (Nietzsche calls them reactive.) These habits are characterized by their one-sidedness. This one-sidedness may be attributed to the lack of certain category of habits, a category of habits we may refer to as will to death.

A slave is someone without a right to die. Basically, a coward. That is a man who in order to avoid immediate death decides to live a slow death (e.g. a life of mental illness.) A person not used to death and all that is related to it (risk, loss and pain) will become addicted to strong feelings: he will start craving narcotics of all kinds, be they mental (e.g. defense mechanisms, philosophies and similar) or physical (e.g. drugs, social status and similar.)

People are lonely – that’s true. They are, however, not lonely simply because they have no friends. They are lonely because they cannot endure a life with no friends.