There is a peculiarity of those who choose to walk alone and find contentment along that path. A certain unspoken strength, an almost unsettling truth. Most look upon such people and wonder, “can they truly be happy?”
“What secret to contentment do they know that I don’t?”
Such independent spirits are often seen as loners, and yet, they seem to be gripped by something more, something transcendent, something timeless.
The Beliefs of Most
Most of us do not believe in contentment in solitude. We seek company almost at any cost, even if that company is bad company, even if that company leads us to loathe ourselves and to lament our lot in life. Why is this? Why do we invite misery to ourselves through the vain company of others?
Someone who walks alone has seen through the illusions of life, through the layers of conditioning that binds most others. To such people, small-talk and gossip seem empty; they can engage in such discourse insomuch as to conform for the sake of comforting others, but they themselves do not value it, and quite often remove themselves from groups that tend to indulge in such idle chatter.
The awakened one realizes that most people seek comfort, not truth. Therefore, they do not impose their self-found truth upon others, knowing that it would be decried and rejected by the vested egos of others in their need to cling to their falsehoods instead of finding their own truth.
Walking Alone
Those who are awakened come to realize that they must walk alone. They may, in this venture, seem to be cold, distant, and aloof; but this could not be further from the truth. It is that they do not seek company for company’s sake. They do not fear being alone and find solace in solitude. Consequently, they do not seek validation in the collective dream.
Awakened individuals do not reject people, au contraire, they accept everyone quite openly and humbly. Simply put, awakened ones do not entertain superficiality: they reject conflict, drama, and idle talk. They remove themselves purposefully from such conversations, to avoid themselves being swayed by such words. To those who are awakened, solitude is not something to be feared, for it is not loneliness, but peace.
Most people fill their days with noise, with action and distractions, to avoid ever having to sit with themselves. In being alone, they find loneliness, not solitude, and are thus in perpetual pursuit of company to avoid contemplating the depth of their their own darkness and shadow. People like this come together to validate each other’s fears of being alone. They build their relationships on the commonalities of their superficial beliefs, interests, and activities, but rarely do they stop to consider whether such commonalities have any real substance.
In a nutshell, most people bond, not over values of spirit, but material values.
Falseness of Friendships
Most friendships are not rooted in truth, but in a pursuit of keeping certain mistruths alive. When someone stops seeing life as a competition, stops seeing life as a collection of empty distractions, they naturally must walk alone, to find their own meaning. Such a person wakes up and finds they can no longer engage in most conversations without feeling disconnected. They see that most people are talking simply to fill the silence, talking about nothing in particular; they are talking to feel good about themselves, gossiping about others to avoid having to contemplate the shortcomings of their own lives.
Most people want to be heard, but few want to listen. Most want support, but don’t care to be challenged. They want to be surrounded by those who comfort them and their beliefs, not those who challenge their perspectives. Someone who is awakened, in pursuit of truth, can no longer engage in such deceits. They can no longer engage in discussions to reaffirm false securities. Those who are awakened occupy a space of truth, and it is because of this truth, that they quietly find they can have fewer and fewer friends.
This is not because awakened ones do not appreciate people or friends, but because they are now looking for friendship with those who are also in pursuit of truth. They look for those who are not looking for reaffirmation or idle chatter, they look for people who have found their own joy in solitude. A relationship with an awakened one is a relationship which has “nothing” to it: nothing holding the two people together except for a commonality of choice, a desire to journey through life towards a common truth that both have recognized; an eternal truth that both know can never change, that is the same no matter how different they are, as individuals. Those who are awakened thus form relationships of mutual respect and openness.
Divergent Paths
When someone begins to walk a path that diverges from the conventional, they become different in their very way of being. Their presence alone becomes a challenge to those around them, and this is enough to push people away. The masses label such individuals as anomalies, as “weird” or “strange.” Most of society is too intent on reinforcing each other’s views and beliefs, and finding someone who is openly against playing such games is deeply unsettling for most. Thus, they engage in ostracizing and rejecting those whom they consider different, in the hopes of maintaining the comfort of mundanity, the laziness of their status quo, the emptiness of their meaningless existences.
Is not an empty existence foregoing truth in favor of pleasure and self-deception? Do we exist simply to pass the time between our births and deaths in hedonistic pursuits, or do we exist for something more, something deeper: a search for truth and profundity in the experience of being?
Solitude is not a punishment. It is a quiet liberation in which relationships are no longer based on dependency, but true recognition. People who love solitude move through the world without a need to be seen, without a need to be heard, without a need to be understood. In this way, they find a freedom that few ever do; and in this freedom, they are able to engage with a richness of creativity and joy that few understand. In this way, they disrupt the predictability most rely upon for social harmony, and they stop adhering to the implicit agreements most people have for holding social groups together.
When someone challenges these social constructs simply by choosing no longer to engage in them, they naturally disrupt the fabric of such structures. They are often met with silence, passive aggression, or resentment.
“Why Don’t I Have Friends?”
Those who are awakened often go through a transition during which they may ask themselves why they do not have friends, or why people seem to push them away. It is during this time that the need for constant human companionship begins to fade.
Being awakened is not a state of “eliteness.” Those who embrace their solitude do not reject others or consider themselves superior or better. They simply realize that they are tuned to a different frequency of being.
During this process, those who are awakened begin to realize that they are connected to the energy that governs all things. They have willingly exchanged popularity for clarity, closeness for authenticity.
Genuity
By walking alone, by pursuing one’s truth in solitude, one experiences a powerful freedom which enables them to transcend the false beliefs that constrain most of society. It is in this freedom, which most people cannot comprehend, that one finds one’s natural state of being. It is in this state of being that one experiences the truest and deepest joys, and the greatest intellectual and creative breakthroughs.
Such individuals may be rejected, but they will find contentment despite this rejection, realizing that most people exist in a collective hypnosis and set of delusions. Those who are awakened realize that the very idea of fitting in is itself absurd. Such a being cannot engage in gossip and idle-talk; cannot appreciate jokes based on insulting others, bullying, anxiety, or egoic affirmation. Such people have stopped being characters in other people’s plays in favor of being the protagonist of their own script.
People like this realize, inherently, that they are not unloved despite their solitude: but rather, that they are loved beyond belief by all creation. It is in this state of being that one realizes that being alone is not a curse, but a blessing. It is in this emptiness, in the space between thoughts, that one begins to find a deep and everlasting connection to life, a richness that is beyond words and description. The emptiness around you is not quiet, but full of life; your thoughts are full of vibrancy and rejuvenation. It is the clearing out of all that is false.
Nevertheless, sometimes the quietness is too much; sometimes you may wonder if you have made a mistake. This is natural. Like the waves on the beach, there is an ebb and a flow. In the receding of the waves, you begin to make out a voice… in the stillness and calm, there are words beyond words. As you listen, you begin to realize, it is you: the true you, the truth that is beyond all thought, that can only be heard in silence.
Continue walking the path of solitude with faith and grace, and you will assuredly find a lasting peace and calm beyond imagining.
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