I think I have suffered from loneliness before. A stomach-stabbing loneliness really. No friends to truly communicate, going on car drives with no destination/intention but to just think, walking in the evening hoping someone would strike a conversation, etc. Though I find my loneliness usually arises because I expect something different than what already is. Expecting something different than what is is a way to suffer (accept what is, and you’re free?). Consequently, I find that I must make a home out of this loneliness. You know how when you move into a new place and you are organizing or reorganizing or maybe decorationing your work station at home to make it feel comfortable and home-y? Well, that’s what I think I had to do internally to make my loneliness not loneliness. I suppose convert loneliness into solitude.
Then again, I have this vague thought that many people suffer from loneliness (depression, etc) because of how we are raised, how society, culture, civilization, have molded our minds. I think in modern day, consciousness is everything. But because it’s an unknowable object, we ignore it or worse: pretend it doesn’t exist. Consequently, we end up hard-headed in a matrix of half-baked beliefs, lonely, depressed, fearful, and anxious. I don’t know, the whole social order I think is set up in order to avoid the unknowable, if you will, of what everything is. The idea that the radio is blaring at all times. That we are all taught to listen to channels but never taught to turn it off and listen to the silence. If only we were to listen we would see that from the unknowable arises a reflection; the consciousness of everything, the I-am. At this point, I think, sort of in the poverty of true humility, everything that appears is seen as a miracle. The birds chirping in the morning is as much of a miracle as being in the perfect spot in the knowable universe for life to exist. The question then arises: Why is it that we remain deaf/blind running around anxiously in the noise when pure consciousness is right here out in the open all the time?
Above all: I think loneliness may be combated through several forms: reading really good fiction, doing drugs (weed in particular), having passionate sex, or any form of escapism. I find that the latter are only temporary ways to combat loneliness. If we would like to conquer loneliness, making a home of yourself and reflecting on what truly is is really important.