People are always afraid of loneliness, thinking that loneliness is a bad feeling. If a person likes to be alone, many people will feel that he must be lonely and lonely inside, and may still be a freak.
Why is loneliness so much frightening to many people, but many people actively choose to be lonely? In the book "The Value of Solitude", the author recognizes death as the ultimate loneliness, but death itself is not terrible, what is terrible is the life towards death. And loneliness itself is not terrible, what is terrible is that we do not know how to face a lonely life. Where does our fear of loneliness come from, and how do we recognize the value of loneliness, discover the value and creativity of loneliness? This book can give us some inspiration.
This book is very thin, you can read it in a day, the reading experience is very relaxed and enjoyable, and at the same time can bring people a lot of insights. The author, Mr. Hiroshi Mori, is a doctor of engineering who has taught at universities and has written speculative fiction and won awards. Mr. Mori was a civil servant for eight years before resigning to write full-time. Although he is a full-time writer, Mori Hiroshi really only spends more than an hour writing every day, and a lot of other time, in addition to spending time with his family, because of the connection between publishing books and graduating from editing, his favorite thing is to be alone, to do some things he likes, so he also has more feelings and thoughts about loneliness, and finally has this "The Value of Loneliness".
Sen Hiroshi believes that loneliness is beautiful, productive and creative. Man is a high-class animal precisely because he has the ability to feel loneliness and can create in a lonely environment.
So what is loneliness?
Loneliness is a feeling of loneliness! Of course, the baby cries because he wants to breastfeed and can't see his mother for a while, which is also considered lonely. People who beg on the side of the road, people who are extremely poor and have no friends, will also feel lonely. But these are more of an instinctive sense of loneliness in survival, not the loneliness that is discussed in the book. The loneliness mentioned in the book is the loneliness that occurs after people have been guaranteed their material life and no longer need to run for survival, because of certain experiences.
Therefore, the loneliness mentioned in the book is the opposite of hilarity, in fact, human emotions are relative, there is life and death, there is sadness and happiness, there is that lively feeling, and only then will you experience the feeling of loneliness. If a person is in the forest from birth and has not been in contact with other human beings, he will not have that feeling of hilarity, nor will he experience the loneliness of not having a companion.
Loneliness is a necessity in life, and people who don't feel lonely are because they have never experienced the feeling of having and being recognized. Only by experiencing the feeling of having friendship, love, being approved, being recognized, feeling lonely at the moment of loss. Since life is originally accompanied by gain and loss, gathering and growing apart, then loneliness is also the norm of life. We can't never experience separation and loss, so it's also impossible to never feel lonely. Accept loneliness, there is nothing terrible about itself!
So why are we all afraid of being alone?
First, the theory that man is a social animal binds our way of life and reminds us that it is wrong not to live in groups, that being alone is bad, unsociable, and even weird, and can be detrimental to the survival of individuals. So, we long to be identified, to find a large group to belong to, otherwise we can't prove that we are normal social animals.
And the society we live in always consciously or unconsciously makes loneliness particularly terrible, telling you that loneliness is not good. In particular, many film and television works over-exaggerate the importance of companionship, desperately singing the praises of love, praising friendship, creating feelings, and selling feelings. We will cry for those touching plots, but in the eyes of the producers, those emotions are commodities. In many film and television dramas, people who lose their lovers are always in pain, either they must have a new relationship to heal their wounded hearts, or they must help their friends to get out of the pain. Lonely people are always shown to be depressed, sad, and desperate to find someone to talk to.
The news also reports of a person dying suddenly at home without a person around, reminding us that this is the price of loneliness.
So we always preconceived that loneliness is negative, loneliness is painful, loneliness proves that we are not accepted by others, and the end is likely to be very tragic.
And how do we deal with loneliness?
First, see loneliness as preparation for happiness.
This feeling is actually the same as the principle of dieting, enjoying the feeling of loneliness, many people will diet in order to lose weight, but sometimes they can't help but indulge in eating once. The pleasure of occasionally indulging oneself once in a while is indescribable than letting go of your belly and eating every day.
It's actually the same feeling as enjoying solitude, and we can see loneliness as a preparation for happiness. We have to try to enjoy the feeling of loneliness, not being disturbed, and doing whatever we like to do alone, just like a person who usually tries to diet, but also can't help but want to eat once.
Second, find something to do when you're lonely
We can write poetry, to believe that in fact, everyone can be a poet, it is not so difficult to write poetry, the most important thing is to write their own current state of mind.
We can also do some research, not to do anything tall, scientific, academic research. Even doing some research that seems particularly boring to others is a very interesting thing.
The most interesting point is that we can do things that seem meaningless to others, such as raising an ordinary weed that will not flower or bear fruit. And all we have to do is wait for that simple growth. The weeds seem to have no contribution at all, but they consume energy and land resources, and they live endlessly, one year old and one year old, waiting for the seemingly vain growth, which will make us feel the essence of loneliness. Thinking that loneliness is a futile effort.
Loneliness is beautiful and creative!
"Stupid things become interesting, boring things become cute, and it's not the weeds that change, it's your state of mind that changes!" When we really change our state of mind and accept loneliness, we can truly feel the power of loneliness. Because loneliness can bring people the power to think, thinking makes people bold and creative, brave to create, so loneliness is also an important productive force.
Ordinary moss, in the Qing Dynasty poet Yuan Ming's pen, became "moss flowers are as small as rice, but also learn peonies to open!" What a romantic and philosophical verse. How could a man who only pursues hilarity pay attention to those inconspicuous mosses? If you are not alone, how can you pay attention to the ignored beauty around you, how can you be moved by many extremely ordinary things, and even inspire yourself to think deeper about life?
The great detective Sherlock Holmes is a freak in the eyes of many people, who think that a person like Holmes cannot have friends.
Many people may think that Holmes is lonely, but when he indulges in every bizarre case, constantly deducing the case in his own reasoning world, thinking, reasoning, the kind of happiness that is completely immersed in it is something that many mediocre people in their lives cannot have.
Even if he dies alone at home, we only see his loneliness living alone, but that may be his personal choice, not to be disturbed, to do what he likes to do, at the moment of death is still intoxicated in his favorite hobbies and research, he also has his own lonely happiness, which we cannot see.
There are also many great works of art, literary works, are created in a lonely environment, or the work itself is describing loneliness, expressing the unique views of the creators on loneliness, showing their own unique perspective on loneliness, and thus giving birth to many great works.
The Czech writer Bo Hrabar wrote in "Too Noisy Loneliness", "Because I have the privilege of being alone, although I have never been lonely, I am alone, living alone in the dense concentration of thoughts",
Thoreau lived alone on the shores of Walden Lake for more than two years, and wrote a masterpiece of rich philosophy of life, "Walden Lake", zhu Ziqing wrote the prose "Lotus Pond Moonlight" in the face of the incomparable lotus pond moonlight.
Schopenhauer said: One can only be oneself when one is lonely. If he cannot enjoy solitude, he will not love freedom, because only when he is lonely is he truly free.
Loneliness will become the norm in life!
Zhou Guoping once said: "When mixing with others, I yearn for loneliness. When I am lonely, I yearn to see my kind. ”
Human beings are a combination of contradictions, and loneliness is naturally contradictory and complex. In the future, when the social productive forces develop to a sufficient level and the common prosperity of mankind becomes possible, more people will be freed from productive labor and will not have to worry about hunger. By then, leisure and entertainment will become more and more common. People can have fun, but this pleasure doesn't bring a real sense of fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment.
And only creation brings a real sense of fulfillment, and a sense of accomplishment. The best time to create how it happens is when you are alone. The social connection between people will be simpler, and everyone can connect with other people without leaving home, thus reducing a lot of unnecessary social time, and their own time alone will increase.
People who are good at thinking will make full use of these times to do what they like, even if these hobbies are not understood by the people around them, they can find like-minded people all over the world through more convenient links.
The author envisions a future society where all people can learn to enjoy solitude and do what they are interested in, so it is not difficult to achieve world peace, which is a very beautiful vision.
If you don't want to just be a person who goes with the flow, then this book will show you how to recognize the value of loneliness, have high-quality loneliness, create while enjoying loneliness, and do something that you find interesting.