Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

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September 12, 2009

One, Alone, but not Lonely … in the real world

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 12:16 am

I've been thinking . . .

about the number one, about being alone and being lonely.

I’ve been thinking about how separate we are for almost as long as I’ve known me.

One. I was born one.
One of my friends — a twin — said that he so didn’t like being lonely that he was even born with someone else. But you know, I don’t even think being born with someone else closes the gap … between selves.

No matter how close two people get, we are never each other.
We will always be one.

It’s why I like this picture.

948591___01011000__


The minute we try to blend with another … be it a friend or a lover … hopefully we learn that alone is not the same as lonely.

One, alone, but not lonely is a proud and powerful word in the real world.

Have you felt the difference between alone and lonely?

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13 Comments to “One, Alone, but not Lonely … in the real world”

  1. September 12th, 2009 at 12:24 am
    Glenda Watson Hyatt said

    Most definitely, Liz! I have been alone but not lonely. The loneliest I’ve ever felt was sitting in a conference room filled with 400+ people. Loneliness is not the number of other people in the room, but rather the acceptance in the room. Sometimes that acceptance begins with one, oneself.

  2. September 12th, 2009 at 12:47 am
    Kay Ballard said

    Liz, I loved this post and think that being alone, yet not lonely is the most elegant and satisfying way to live. It is also the most realistic way to live since we all are, in fact, ultimately alone.

    I never tire of reading “The Solitude of Self,” the powerfully moving spoken essay of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

    http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5315/

  3. September 12th, 2009 at 1:28 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Glenda,
    That’s such an insight. Being alone and comfortable with myself doesn’t count the number of people in the room. I’ve been lonely in a crowd too. :)

  4. September 12th, 2009 at 1:32 am
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Kay,
    Thank you for finding your way here tonight …

    It is elegant to know the space where we are ourselves without others and happy, safe, and whole. Maybe it’s even what part of our journey is.

    Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote a wonderful piece. Thank you for reminding me of it.

    It used to scratch at me that I realized early the fact that we are inescapably alone. Now I find it almost a comfort.

  5. September 12th, 2009 at 1:34 am
    Glenda Watson Hyatt said

    And Liz, isn’t being lonely in a crowd much more painful than being lonely alone?

  6. September 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am
    Todd Smith said

    I love this thought, Liz. It reminds me of something one of my favorite people, Byron Katie http://www.thework.com, says: “No two people have ever met.”

    We only have “met” what we imagine someone else to be. We project our own thinking onto them. We think someone is friendly or mean. How do we really know? We can’t. A “mean” person might be doing things the only way he or she knows how. Their intentions might be good. Our projection tells us more about who we are at that moment than anything else.

    So we really are alone. Why not love the one we’re with!

  7. September 12th, 2009 at 10:12 am
    --Deb said

    It’s funny you should mention your friend the twin, because I was born a twin, but she only lived a few hours, and while I consider myself a friendly person, and all, I tend to feel that that made me more independent. That, fine, I’d just be on my own from the very beginning (since I also spent my first 7 weeks in the hospital, away from Mom and Dad). Oddly, though? I’ve always felt like my twin is right here with me, lending me moral support so that I never feel completely alone.

    Howe weird is that, huh?

  8. September 12th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    I don’t know, Glenda.
    Being lonely is just lonely like a hole inside …
    Being alone is something whole and different …
    What’s more empty an empty cup or an empty room?

  9. September 12th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Yeah, Todd,
    I subscribe the idea that we what we see in other people is something of a mirror of ourselves. What we think they’re thinking is what we’d be thinking if we were them. We project a lot and take what we believe from our experience to be “reality.”

    Your last sentence gets us back to trust and confidence seem to be inescapably intertwined. Don’t you think?

  10. September 12th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    Hi Deb,
    I don’t think it’s weird at all. I’m glad you have that support always with you. The irony is that you’ve just described an independence centered in not being alone. :)

  11. September 14th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
    Todd Smith said

    Liz, I was thinking the same thing… it does come back to trust and confidence. fascinating!

  12. September 14th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
    ME Liz Strauss said

    I think you and I, Todd, are tracking the same thoughts these days. :)

  13. September 14th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
    Todd Smith said

    yeah, me too!

    been thinking of barn raising again too… ever since I saw what happened when we put our heads together.

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