Loneliness

 

And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

 

              – James Weldon Johnson

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                                 But these stories don’t mean anything

                                 When you’ve got no one to tell them to.

                                                                   – Brandi Carlile

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Eternity

is about

relationships.

                   – Gabriel

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The Loneliness Industry is huge.  And it’s growing fast. I have spent the past 2 ½ years inside it  – as a customer. That is, I have been ‘dating’ online for that time.  I started out communicating with local women. I met with two of them; and one of those is still a friend.  But after about six months (of communicating with local women) I realized that what I was doing wasn’t going to take me anywhere I wanted to go.

When I was in the Navy, I spent a year in language school studying Russian.  And our teachers were from Russia. I very much enjoyed being with these people.  And, for the past ten years or so I wondered if I might have a sweetheart somewhere in that part of the world.  

There are sites which specialize in Russian speaking women; and I began to look at some.  After a few weeks, I began to understand – that those cultures are very different from the (American) one I’d grown up in.  

By now I have had some communication with hundreds of women.  And I feel confident that the vast majority of them want simply – to love and be loved.  They want “real feelings”. They are not looking for something unworthy or wrong. (A FEW are, of course.  But let’s not worry about them.) Mainly what they seek is – an end to Loneliness.

For a great many human beings (right now, on this world) the pain of loneliness is somewhere between excruciating … and unbearable.

[As Paul Simon says, in The Boxer –  “I do declare, there were times that I was so lonesome I took some comfort there.”]

A few years ago I realized that I was lonely to such a degree and extent that I was “at risk”; I was nearly going crazy.  So I knew I had to do something about it. And that’s when I started looking online for a Life Partner.

It is not at all unusual for me to hear from someone (even in an introductory letter) that she has spent the past decade pursuing her career; but now, having achieved success on that front, she feels unfulfilled emotionally and very lonely.   And she now wants to find someone she can share her life with.

I now feel as if I have been initiated into the world of Loneliness.  And it’s astonishing. And very touching. And the amazing thing NOW – is how so many people are unaware of this enormous human hunger.  I think it must be universal.   But many of us are somehow largely ‘out of touch’ with it.  (I am guessing this is possible through a form of denial.  As Mark Twain says – “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”)

Loneliness … deserves our respect.  It deserves to be acknowledged and honored.

As Rumi says –

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23pTFRcuW68    (God’s Trombones  –  James Weldon Johnson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pQLtHTPaI    (The Story  – Brandi Carlile)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfWQS5fWxxU    (Shower the People  – James Taylor)