Fated to Loneliness

We never experience the world itself; we represent it in our minds, and experience this representation. Thus, everything in our world’s is completely our own.

Relationships with other persons are not a relationship with them, for we don’t know them; they are but relationships with aspects of our mental pictures. In the same vain we have profound relationships with other aspects of our mental pictures, if only that aspect captures our attention. The powerful feeling of oneness in the universe, produced through meditation, is a radical example of such a relationship.

The implication of empathy, that we care for them, is obviously wrong, because we never know others, so we certainly don’t care for them. Empathy is but one scenario of self-caring. We care for others because the experiences associated with mental pictures of them form a crucial part of our own worlds.

Now that we have established the solitude of every man and his world, mans life is revealed to be utterly lonesome. Man constantly attempts to connect with objective reality through representation, but despite the effort, consciously, man knows only his own mind. Society reflects one aspect of man’s projections, the world another. The true place of man is in neither; it is in his own mind.

The desperate search for an internal companion, a real connection with another, has led western man to develop the concept of God, a loving being which permeates all of existence, including one’s own mind. The mind was said to be a soul, which in the deepest way is connected directly to God. Thus, man could finally rid himself of his loneliness. Eastern man has instead developed the concept of Spirits and doctrines of the underlying unity of the universe, stressing the unity of souls.

The truth-seeker, who refuses to participate in any of these popular childish fantasies, must face his inevitable loneliness. It is curious that man, who is only himself, is so unsatisfied with remaining himself. But this longing is necessary for our development and well-being, for it motivates us to constantly represent new phenomenon and learn new information about our supposed surroundings.