On Loneliness

If we are getting lonelier in a modern metropolis, it is perhaps because we can no longer find someone who can unburden ourselves. In almost every metropolis, there lies a paradoxical, inverse role which runs counter to what a densely populated city might suggest. But why are we feeling lonely?

Our sense of loneliness is generally an expression for our longing for love. Perhaps it stems from the fact that we always have a high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing. As we grow up, we realise the cruel characteristic of the universe that our existence is actually of little significance. Whether we exist or not does not demand a slightest degree of change in the universe. This might be the reason why we often harbour a confused wish to embark on a relationship so our trivial existence may take on a certain value. After all, we are still at heart ordinary human beings who embrace narcissism and hope that someone in this world is able to feel what needs to be felt and understand what needs to be understood.

In this technologically innovative era, friendship takes on a new form. It conspires to kill our ability to be patient and nurture shallow relationships through platforms such as facebook, twitter, blogs, and forums. While we are aware that our personality traits are as diverse as the glittering stars across the sky, these online platforms choose to define us with the mere categories of religious views, nationality, genders, political ideologies, and the likes. They refuse to give a clear-eyed investigation to what might constitute our souls and the depth of our sentiments that wish to provoke. The world of the internet has led us to provoke a doubt in the depth of relationships with those whom we, by definition, call friends who are unlikely to bear the same mental bonding as those in the past.

We no longer know how to be good friends which suggests that we no longer know how to love. Most internet relationships (especially those whom we know in reality) are often based on the past. Online bonding stems not from what is distant, but rather from the happy memories that can only be obtained through retrospect. But real friendship should also look forward to what might happen to us. It should not only enforce a common ground for nostalgia, but also it should also offer a guidance to the future, be it a goal or a dream. Our memories are often unreliable. What we can dig up is only bits and pieces. In order to sustain friendship, we need to realise its place in the future.

However, loneliness is not at all times bad. It brings out a pleasant form of melancholy. Friendship is more agreeable when it is accompanied by intervals of separations and reunions. Only through the endurance of loneliness, we might realise the true values of friendship. Human beings are creatures of habits and liable to grow contemptuous of what is familiar. A pleasant degree of loneliness may serve as a temporary cure to boredom and intensify the bonding between friends. It evokes in us a sense of respect for others.

Technology undoubtedly makes our lives more convenient. The problem lies in how we can reconcile technology and the traditional face to face conversation. Aristotle once remarked that a life without friendship is no life. In the current educational system, we seem to neglect the fact that an education of friendship is much needed. Our lonely souls won't be at peace until we revise the place of machines in the modern world.

W