are we essentially and finally alone?

the people in my head say no

Who gives a shit about any opinion Hunter S Thompson had, really

No but in seriousness, it’s an interesting thought.

To be alone as I read that excerpt seems to be more in line with self-sufficiency as an idea. Not self-sufficiency ito financial means but self reliance, happiness spending time alone, not leaning on others for validation, all that. In essence, then, the letter seems to suggest that this is the nature of people as we should be, but it’s an idea with flaws, I think. Will come back to this.

this is a very "depends when you ask me" question

Yeah, the last line as I read it does seem to mean external validation rather than renouncing society and meaningful relationships. But interested to read what others think.

on one level i read it as a version of "noone knows how to be alone in their room", but i think i agree gyac that there's a tone of rugged individualism in there too which i can ignore, but then personally i feel like sadly, in the end, there's more gravity and entropy that isolates us, much as we struggle against that stuff. each one of us imprisoned in the cage of our own experience trying at best to decipher the messages from outside

mind you i've been to Goole so maybe it's just that

when I was a child I remember having this strange sense that I couldn't really put into words that I wasn't 'real' in the way that other people are, and later came to feel that there's no 'me' in the abstract, that I only exist in terms of my relationships with other people and how I relate to them - so I guess I disagree with Thompson - but then I worry that this isn't some universal truth, just evidence of dysfunction my part, like I read definitions of narcissistic personality disorder and it's all stuff like 'weak sense of self, feel they only exist to the extent they're perceived by others' - but I suppose trying to self-diagnose via reading wikipedia articles is not a good use of anyone's time. but I relate to that thing Nixon supposedly said about how when he looked in the mirror it was like there was no-one there (not sure if this is apocryphal)

external validation feels great, huge fan of it personally

also rly big into the whole idea of humanity as socially contingent and notions of the self divorced from a social context is a western (and male) fantasy but i have been teaching a lot of sociology lately so i would say that

me, thinking i might be hot: this is p nice

someone i think is hot telling me that i'm hot: thats what im talking about

hunter s thompson: *struggles to feel hot at all*

the version of the 'we're born alone, die alone' sentiment that seems the most widespread judging by a quick google search is the Orson Welles quote from Someone To Love which is on lots of those 'famous quote' images, I think it's a little different from the Thompson quote, not suggesting rugged self-sufficiency as the solution

we come into the world alone, we die alone, we live alone. Love and friendship is the nearest thing that we can find to create the illusion that we are not totally alone.

the wording is slightly different in a lot of reproductions of the quote, and in a way that maybe changes the meaning, I think this is the closest to what he actually says in the movie though

Lol bison

But I should have fleshed that thought out more - it makes sense to me as external validation being meaningless in the context of living a happy life, you can’t rely on other people to shore yourself up. That’s what I understand it to be, it is about knowing you can hold yourself up and look yourself in the eye and all that, and not sort of desperately needing other peoples attention or validation to feel like a whole person. It’s a great thing, but it can’t be the core thing.

won’t/can’t speak for other people, naturally, but i myself am pretty fuckin alone

Ok, I knew I’d been shiting on about this on here recently

mardheamac (gyac)
Posted: 31 December 2021 at 20:11:06
Building self esteem for yourself takes a while but when you do it, it lasts longer than external validation IMO and the start of it in my experience is setting your boundaries and making people aware of them - saying no, not putting other peoples needs first, not setting yourself on fire for others to be warm. It’s difficult to do but you can look yourself in the mirror. Good luck with it.

something that seems relevant to this discussion is the experience of people who've felt their own sense of identity is marginalised or denied and the ways in which finding others who relate to them and have shared feelings and experiences has been crucial to their own esteem?

sorry, the tenses are probably all over the place on that. anyway - the necessity of forming ourselves thru forming communities?

forming our own communities

but underneath these thoughts i still have doubts about what "real" connection or community might be, at the same time what "real" aloneness might be i guess. digging deep enough into the concepts as Platonic forms might well be bison's western male fantasy

I think that’s a solid idea and I hadn’t considered it, however if you are the only person from a minority bg living in a particular area, you don’t even have that choice of external validation available to your sense of self, but equally it doesn’t mean that you should absorb the messages of majority society either just because of the lack of a wider community. Surely that experience in a hostile area would mean you have to build on your own sense of self worth to survive bc nobody else can echo that back to you? Idk, these are very poorly formed thoughts though

someone i think is hot telling me that i'm hot: thats what im talking about

I guess this kind of feedback loop is what Welles is talking about in the quote, but it's an 'illusion' because there is no actual beginning or end, nothing that exists outside of the feedback loop? idk

xp the internet amongst other things has broadened the possibilities of creating our own communities, tho there were long distance pen friends long before that

my thoughts about self-affirmation against a hostile majority aren't well-formed either because my experiences of that are pretty minor, but in a broader way most of us self-create our communities maybe? - given time - and it's interesting to think about how much self-actualization might be possible without any kind of community, even if it's not physically close to you but found thru culture or whatever else

lol tries to talk himself out of sadsack mode, not totally convincingly

lots of thoughts on this, but it's tl;dr and more or less me just me emotionally colonicing, so hiding it all and only those who want to punish themselves with it need unhide it.

mixed feelings about this not because I find it wrong but because I found I had come close to achieving this in my early 30s and then subsequently lost it and went spiraling backwards, like I'd been on a wooden footbridge over an ocean that collapsed while I was walking on it and just grabbed onto the nearest bar and tried to hang on for dear life.

as a kid, self-sufficiency was all I did, because I was bullied essentially from elementary school through early high school, and I could count the number of friends I had on one hand. but though it caused me anguish, I could be 'alone' and comfortable and entertain myself and be proud of myself.

the problem was, every adult in my life told me this was wrong and criticized me for it. "why are you always by yourself?" "You have to talk to other people!"

Mom even once got on me because one night I went to youth group dressed in a very odd t-shirt and shorts combo and she somewhat hilariously beseeched me, "do you WANT to look like a dork?"

naturally, the first seeking for validation I sought out was more in an attempt to stop being bullied. aka, I started swearing for the first time, wearing No Fear shirts, listening to 'alternative rock' so I could talk about it, but of course, none of it worked. ("Cool shirt. why are YOU wearing it?"). so I found my own niche instead, knowing I'd never "change" my way out of the crosshairs, so might as well be happy.

The bullying stopped in high school because at that point I had mostly evolved into an inoffensive dude that kind of hid in the shadows a bit and wasn't in anybody's crosshairs anymore. I was content with my pocket of friends, was too shy to date and was a bit bummed about that, but mostly was pretty content.

then my senior year came and somehow I came out of my shell, mostly because my classmates started to find me funny and started to want to hang around with me. I wasnt popular, but my circle of friends essentially tripled overnight. and I had nooooo fucking idea how to navigate those waters, plus had undiagnosed anxiety, and suddenly all I wanted was validation all the time. I always thought any silence was a reflection of my friend's anger at me, was convinced they'd all get bored with me and abandon me, so I sought reassurance (an OCD symptom) to the point of my friends' exasperation. also developed a crush on one of the friends and would not give up despite her telling me "no" for two years, which I'm still really ashamed and embarrassed about (eventually, for her sake, my brain finally processed what I was doing through her eyes instead of my own, and I stopped talking to her).

and that insecurity lasted throughout my 20s, it was pathetic. I sought out other people in all the wrong ways, was obsessed with what they thought of me, and disapproval could wreck my entire weekend. theatre kid, so mostly my friends were "who is currently in a play with me", only to forget them minutes later.

I actually lost the ability to do things by myself, even though I had been comfortable with them before. If I wanted to go to a movie, I wanted someone to go with me. or it felt weird. same with concerts. lots of concerts I didn't go to because "nobody will go with me". the few relationships I got in, I almost think I got in them so I could say I was in a relationship.

anyway, I did develop the first three of what would be several 10+ year friendships between 2004-2006, but my behavior didn't really change until I got on Effexor for my anxiety. The first (and arguably only) really great relationship I had ended because my insecurity was so great that I would not openly communicate with my partner, out of fear of upsetting her, and 'fights' even scared me. so she gave up because she knew she wasn't getting all of me. that was right around when I started on the meds. (i posted here under a sock account while the breakup was happening, wish I could delete those posts lol cos I just found one accidentally)

it was a weird night and day effect, like, I started to do things solo again and feel good doing them. and also, ironically had an easier time making friends when I wasn't preoccupied with making friends. like an entirely new army of people showed up in my life, and I no longer was preoccupied with what they thought of me, wasn't afraid of conflict, wasn't afraid to let toxic people go. ages 30-33 were about as "perfect" as they could have gotten for me. I was even dating healthily, with open communication, even though none of them stuck.

I would tell people "I'm the happiest I've ever been" all the time. then experienced a nervous breakdown due to intense work stress and a relationship that fizzled out where I beat myself up and let it impact my self-esteem to the point of paralysis. my anxiety got worse, and the old OCD symptoms that had I used to have pre-medication showed back up again, to where I went back to the therapy.

slowly moved back into this hybrid where I'm still self-sufficient, take care of myself, and do things alone and feel comfortable doing them alone, but still can be easily and swiftly disarmed by someone's disapproval, even if the disapproval is stupid or invalid. my default = "Neanderthal = wrong". been like that for eight years now, and really just don't think I've been able to recover because intense life stress has never backed off long enough for my brain to leave crisis mode.

2015 would have been that year, except mom and dad decided to move back to Florida, dad lived on my couch for 3 months, stripping my privacy, and then they fell into financial ruin because they moved before they were ready, stressing me the fuck out. 2016, I was starting to mend in the Fall, then Trump got elected, which occupied my mind for four years. then the pandemic happened. then dad happened.

I would love a moment in my life where my brain would ever get to the stability it had years ago. I already upped my med dosage with my doc. even though I'm not "happy" and too obsessed with validation, I'm not miserable all of the time, but I just saw my ex (the one I mentioned upthread from 2009) as she was in town as sadly her mother died, and as we were talking, a lot of memories flooded back. we stayed friends after our breakup, and we hung out at various places around town with other friends during those years where I was stable, and it just made me sad to remember I had it once and lost it.

haha well I fucked that up, nevermind.

we can be if we want to be i guess, the question is a bit absolute but i think connections are always possible if we are open to them and open to what they might require of us

this is a very "depends when you ask me" question

― I have a voulez-vous? with death (Noodle Vague)

i think the best time is in a public restroom when someone else walks in

Even if you do agree with HST, I'm not sure he draws the right conclusions from the premise (ie that it's self-respect that is most important thing). It may be that the most important issue, if you believe that we are all ultimately alone, is what are the best ways to relate to other people and what are the optimal ways for us to get along?

Just focusing on self-respect and not worrying what other people think of you is a recipe for sociopathy.

as NV posted the rugged individualism of an arsehole like HST is not good and in his case I don't think he really had the self respect he's claiming for in that quote because he just seemed to playing to the gallery all the time ... kerrazzy guy etc.

a bit like HST I like to think of myself as a desolate outsider, but I still say good morning to Duncan the loud window cleaner in the park every morning and chat to grannies about the weather.

Don't really see that as "rugged individualism" tbh just the most anodyne 'the only thing you'll always have to deal with is yourself' sentiment, but I'm unwilling to put in the effort to find the rest of that letter for more context.

i think i'm agreeing hard with almost everyone on this thread on their defenses of one (self-respect, and how our direct experience does take place inside of our brains, the essential self, even as it is influenced by how it perceives the outside) or the other (social, community, a sense of self in relation to others and vice versa)

i think life is a lot easier when you're feeling a good sense of self, that you do respect yourself or at least not dread yourself, while at the same time having some relationships outside of yourself, whether that's co-workers or family or friends or whatever. also, the two are always in conversation with each other; they're not closed systems. it's really easy for either the self or the social side to fall apart, and then when they do, that affects the other as well. both systems can fail, both can succeed.

if the questions is whether you could only have one, a strong self (with no social) or a strong social (with vacant self), i guess i'd go with the self, because it does seem like a person with many friends but no inside is going to explode at some point. but, you know, all self and no social isn't a fun place to be either.

i don't think any of this is what the poll question is about though, right? maybe i'm misreading it. but as i took it, by "essentially" and "finally" i think he was referencing not only death, but also just kind of who we are as entities in the universe, as we live, during times when we feel completely abandoned or misunderstood or alienated, disconnected from society.

There's a very poor School of Life article on this, inevitably titled "Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK)".

The content actually puts the case for why this very much isn't ok a lot of the time, but this part I did find tragic, bleak and funny:

The desire to undress someone is for a long time far more urgent than the desire for good conversation – and so we end up locked in relationships with certain people we don’t have much to say to, because we were once fatefully interested in the shape of their nose and the colour of their remarkable eyes.

taking the question in its largest possible context (which also means ignoring the context provided by Thompson's letter) for me the answer is Joshu's dog.

the patriarchs who say mu

that was supposed to be a knights of the holy grail reference. it's sunday ok

Can't agree with Mumon's commentary: Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked.

No -sometimes your thinking is just blocked with no result. Try another way rather than persist in idiocy!

I think there's a way of interpreting that which makes room for both trying another way rather than persisting in the same idiocy, as luna is saying, but also that trying another way of thinking is probably the way you eventually are able to continue down the road of thinking which was previously blocked. it was blocked, and you found another way around it. i dunno, that's one way i read it at least

i'm just now flashing back to my philosophy 101 teacher reading my essays and probably doing massive eyerolls at every single word! good lord, that makes me feel bad in retrospect lol

xps - i've spend 35 years caring for someone who is entirely non-verbal and basically quadriplegic, but who is clearly thoughtful, responsive, and observant. this helps to sharpen the question for me.

I have a similar life experience and feel that aimless is completely otm here

I think HST is right and Darnielle is wrong but that we are morally required to live as though Darnielle is right and HST is wrong

Can't agree with Mumon's commentary: Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked.

No -sometimes your thinking is just blocked with no result. Try another way rather than persist in idiocy!

My impression is that this is core of zen. Maybe I've had a less than ideal introduction but most discussions of zen I've encountered always come back to this concept that rational thought is a handicap. In my experience there is a struggle between thoughts causing emotions, or emotions causing thoughts. My understanding of this concept of the rational handicap is that people become emotionally frustrated because they think some breakthrough will occur by endless analysis of context etc while often being reluctant to actually address their emotional state directly.

Neanderthal that is quite a tale, so tough sorry. I can relate to many of the emotional issues although I had a decent group of friends thoughout the teen years, I do wonder if the amount of drugs and particularly binge drinking we did together may have screwed me up for good. My kneejerk reaction is "try meditation" but I'm guessing it's not the first time you've heard that. It's certainly not for everyone, and there's a lot of bad instruction out there imo.

when I was a child I remember having this strange sense that I couldn't really put into words that I wasn't 'real' in the way that other people are, and later came to feel that there's no 'me' in the abstract, that I only exist in terms of my relationships with other people and how I relate to them - so I guess I disagree with Thompson - but then I worry that this isn't some universal truth, just evidence of dysfunction my part, like I read definitions of narcissistic personality disorder and it's all stuff like 'weak sense of self, feel they only exist to the extent they're perceived by others' - but I suppose trying to self-diagnose via reading wikipedia articles is not a good use of anyone's time. but I relate to that thing Nixon supposedly said about how when he looked in the mirror it was like there was no-one there (not sure if this is apocryphal)

― soref, Sunday, February 20, 2022 6:18 PM (two hours ago)

Fascinating insight. I recently watched a video from a psychologist who has a lot of videos about NPD on YT, since I suspect my mother is somewhere on the narcissistic spectrum but also wonder if I recognize that cause of my own tendencies.

There's a book about narcissism that's maybe seen as outdated now but which really helped me understand it: The Drama of The Gifted Child by Alice Miller. It's kind of a lot to chew on here but a key point is that the fixation with narcissism as a pathology elides the fact that narcissism is basically a normal stage of development, for say a three year old, but some people never grow past that.

I've heard it described as 'suprarational' - transcending, and yet including rational thought. I agree with Jack Kerouac that zen can be a bit too cruel - zen masters are a bit too keen on cutting cats in half to demonstrate a point, and whacking monks with a big stick - all in the cause of enlightenment of course.

Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. He seized the cat and told the monks: "If any of you say a good word, you can save the cat."

No one answered. So Nansen boldly cut the cat in two pieces.

That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him about this. Joshu removed his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked out.

Nansen said: "If you had been there, you could have saved the cat."

Take it over to zen assholes

Sorry. Good points here but I'm afraid I have nothing to add, at least until a find a witty YouTube to post.

Cheers but wtf does that even mean. Sandals on head? This is clearly not my forte.

zen vs philosophy vs therapy ts

Didn't quite get that sandals thing, assumed it was some form of protest.

Wait, is that what The Drama of the Gifted Child is about, narcissism? That's not what I got out of it, but I probably read it too fast/pvmic.

as Mrs Doyle would say, koan koan koan koan koan

Yeah Redd well it was recommended to me as a book about narcissism and she goes into quite a bit of detail about it, that's what I got out of it. It's been a while for tho, I may have skimmed some of the non-narcissism bits. I did note on her website it strongly downplays the narcissism angle of the book, I had assumed that's cause her analysis is rooted in psychoanalysis (ew, Freud) but it's still quite astute imo.

“Quite often I have been faced with patients who have been praised and admired for their talents and their achievements.

“According to prevailing, general attitudes these people — the pride of their parents — should have had a strong stable sense of self-assurance.

“But exactly the opposite is the case.

“In my work with these people, I found that every one of them has a childhood history that seems significant to me:

- There was a mother who at the core was emotionally insecure, and who depended for her narcissistic equilibrium on the child behaving, or acting, in a particular way. This mother was able to hide her insecurity from the child and from everyone else behind a hard, authoritarian and even totalitarian facade.
- This child had an amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is, unconsciously, to this need of the mother or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him.
- This role secured “love” for the child—that is, his parents’ exploitation. He could sense that he was needed, and this need, guaranteed him a measure of existential security.

“This ability is then extended and perfected. Later, these children not only become mothers (confidantes, advisers, supporters) of their own mothers, but also take over the responsibility for their siblings and eventually develop a special sensitivity to unconscious signals manifesting the needs of others.”

If there's a better thread for this please let me know. (But I think I've had my fill of zen for the year.)

No worries, viborg, thanks for posting!

Short answer to OP: even (or especially) if we are (most likely) alone, work towards Improving relationship with self to improve relationship with others, towards interdependence instead of codependence, etc etc etc. Have to go socialize with extended family now, wish me luck!

my feeling is that we're all "essentially alone" in the sense that nobody but you can really share your personal thoughts and perceptions, your unique experience of the world. this is why it feels so magical when you do encounter someone else who's had a weird idiosyncratic thought or experience you've had, whether in a book or in a conversation.

i think HST may have meant something like this, but...he also seems to be delighting in the whole rugged-individual-standing-alone-against-the-world thing, which i think is what the tweet is responding to. (in a subsequent tweet he calls HST's statement "politically reactionary.") and of course that attitude is silly: nobody is really ever "alone" in human society; even a hermit who lived in a shack in the mountains or something would still be affected by the existence of other people. HST himself must have known that, as someone who spent so much of his time thinking about politics. "we are all alone" could easily become an excuse for becoming indifferent to the feelings of other people. (as i think it eventually did for HST, unfortunately.) 

my feeling is that we're all "essentially alone" in the sense that nobody but you can really share your personal thoughts and perceptions, your unique experience of the world. this is why it feels so magical when you do encounter someone else who's had a weird idiosyncratic thought or experience you've had, whether in a book or in a conversation.

^^^^i like the way you put this

Yes, me too.

aw, thanks!

So did we get this sorted yesterday?

Ultimately you'll need to come to your own conclusions for your own self-respect.

Putting aside channeling HST for a moment, I think Guayaquil is concise and accurate.

i think the best time is in a public restroom when someone else walks in

“With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.”

I never take Hunter Thompson too seriously, except when I do.

with slack down, now we are truly alone

Don't think we've heard from Jimmie Dale Gilmore yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu2y4k53Cr4

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

This poll is closing tomorrow.

...when the results, gathered in silence and posted by a soulless System, will glow from our screens with a cold pitiless light, reaching our eyeballs hundreds of femtoseconds later, and will do nothing to penetrate our essential isolation or dispel our eternal alienation from the universe. Yet, we shall not die of this cruel stab at our very hearts, but only shrivel a bit further into our lonely individual hells.

We are not alone, but we are constantly being alienated, from ourselves, each others, and our work

Voted Self/No Self

write in for I Think We're Alone Now

We are never alone, but our brains continually deceive us so we remain unaware of all our infinite connections.

otm

Think I may have the worst of both worlds in this: my existence is constantly defined by my thoughts on what others would think of my values, thoughts and actions, but I am also acutely aware that these "others" are constructs inside my head, not actual people, and so I am alone.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Sheila Heti: "On some level, I should be alone right now, but also, one is always alone."

sheila heti seems to be on the mark, frequently. it's both, rarely all of one and none of the other.

otm

(x-post)

it's both, rarely all of one and none of sometimes a bit of the other.