Ask HN: I love to be alone. But this loneliness is killing me

I would recommend seeking a competent and honest therapist or religious advisor because it is very unlikely you can overcome this alone given how this has, by your own admission, been a lifelong problem. I don't think it is wise to seek serious advice for what is a mental, spiritual, and/or moral issue in an online forum. Not only do we not know you well enough to advise you properly, but the likelihood that you'll receive advice that will help you is rather low. It might even help having something who keep you accountable.

For example, we don't even know why you are avoiding social interaction, and you may not consciously know it either. What sorts of vices are you enslaved to that keep you stuck? What sorts of destructive habits from childhood are you trapped by? Do you have a temperamental disposition for melancholy?

FWIW, depression, which is what it seems you have, can involve avoiding truths, including those about oneself, that are uncomfortable or painful. This is pride, which is opposed to humility (i.e., rational, honest self-appraisal and self-assessment; emotions are not the best guide). Pride is the mother vice from which all other vices spring. In retrospect, it is not surprising. Life lived in opposition to the truth is a recipe for misery, boredom, stagnation, nihilism, and insanity.

Happier is the man who passes through the meat grinder that is life than the man who seals himself off in a padded cell, wasting his life in the process. It is better for the wolves to tear you to shreds than to rot under a rock; for others to destroy you than for you to destroy yourself. Indeed, a man can inflict categorically worse harms on himself than anyone else can which are superficial abrasions in comparison.

The single most potent idea I have ever run across is "blame vs responsibility," it couples with another potent idea "easy vs simple," and another one "comfort vs growth."

Blame vs responsibility is analyzing yourself to see if you are primarily in a state of blame (also known as outward locus of control -- the world happens to you) or responsibility (inward locus of control -- you happen to the world).

Easy vs simple is the idea that some things are simple while some things are easy, and just because something is simple doesn't mean it is easy and just because something is easy, doesn't mean it is simple. "just set up a new service in production" is easy but not simple. "lose weight" is simple but not easy.

Comfort vs growth is the idea that comfort and growth are opposites. If you are comfortable you are not growing. If you are growing you are not comfortable. You cannot have growth without discomfort. Seeking the pain of discomfort is how you achieve growth.

> Sometimes it seems like i do that to create something like a melancholic void, that i must feel, because otherwise, i would feel empty…

Here you are recognizing that the "melancholic void" is your state of comfort (or at least more comfortable than the state of emptiness), while in the first half of the sentence you are explaining your lack of growth. The lack of growth comes from choosing the state of comfort.

If you are overweight, your life will suck. There is just no getting around that. Fat people are not generally sexual objects, and that will destroy mental health. Obesity == invisibility, sexually and socially. Eating what you want is very easy and very comfortable. Losing weight is extremely uncomfortable and extremely hard, despite how simple it is to do. You eat less, period. Simple bit extremely hard.

So if you're fat. Do you blame your genetics? Do you blame your lack of self control? Or do you take responsibility for your over eating? Blaming does not lead to action, it leads to stagnation. Taking responsibility means believing that you can have an effect on those things and acting accordingly. Maybe it means going to a specialist.

Quitting gaming is another example of simple but not easy. Just don't play games is quite simple. Dealing with the feelings that result from removing a primary form of escapism is not. A blame mindset is "games are too addictive," a responsibility mindset is "my life will never get better until I stop escaping."

Not feeling a connection with people is another thing that can be weighed on these axis. How much are you blaming people for the problem vs taking responsibility for the problem? Are you expecting to find comfortable easy solutions? Can you already think of uncomfortable, yet simple solutions (like talking to strangers/getting better at talking to people/talking to more people/joining clubs with intellectually minded people/be more vulnerable/etc.)?

When you find yourself in a state of blame (other people aren't as smart as me and therefore I am lonely because no one can talk to me on my level), you are choosing comfort. "It's not something wrong with me, it's something wrong with other people." Your ego has a facade of protection. Meanwhile your mental health suffers because you are not choosing the pain/discomfort required to get out of your situation.

Thoreau's famous for spending a lot of time alone and writing about it.

" I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house."

Finding a living person or two that shares an interest or two can be a rare and good thing. Until then, there are always artists who've shared our problems. ;-)

I also agree. I read Man's Search for Meaning at a point where I felt no meaning in my life. I found it completely worthless as a guide to finding meaning.

There is one sentence in the last half of the book that is something like "meaning comes from living every moment as if it has meaning" and that seemed like his central idea of "logotherapy". Meaning is to find meaning.

My response is that "meaning is figuring out how to make your brain cells fire off in ways that result in feeling contentment or wanting." If we are ruled by our transmitters like serotonin (contentment) and dopamine (motivation/action/wanting), this all breaks down when it comes to real depression.

In real depression the reward systems we experience have stopped working to the point where sunsets are hard to appreciate. The mechanics through which we might experience meaning are corrupted to the point where conventional philosophy doesn't make a lot of sense.

How do you find meaning when the "meaning" circuits in your brain don't fire?

On the topic of the book I found this quote on American (or was it western) culture insightful: “The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.”

This was going to be my post too - I used to have severe social anxiety, consider myself extremely introverted, and loving to be alone. But I was a very unhappy person and suffered a lot from depression/mental health issues.

Life circumstances (being single) forced me to go out. It was a really hard task, extremely uncomfortable, and full of sort of traumatic and awful experiences. It's only 6-7 years later after starting this that I'm finally in a place where I would almost describe myself as extroverted. I'm socially an entirely different person. My general mental health and well-being is greatly improved. I get a lot of value out of the people in my life and my relationships with them.