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There is a famous book saying loneliness is the ultimate feeling coming along with us. So don't be afraid of being lonely. I read another blog post here talking

by dclara 13y ago

There is a famous book saying loneliness is the ultimate feeling coming along with us. So don't be afraid of being lonely. I read another blog post here talking about enjoy aloneness, which is also great. If you are confident from inside, ultimately you can overcome the negative feeling, but enjoy the peaceful feeling for being lonely. At least there is no hurt from other people. I agree that you have to give them time to surface. Actually frequently practicing meditation will help you clear up your mind and let the feeling surface. Make ourselves strong psychologically will keep us away from feeling lonely. Of course, always having goal to pursue, you don't have time to feel lonely.

h1karu 13y ago
my favorite quotation on loneliness: http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1963-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-think-on-these-things-chapter-23 http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1... You have a point about how if one always has a goal to pursue one never allows himself to feel his deepest sense of loneliness and therefor he doesn't fully process it and learn from it. It's tough though as a software developer because if you have "free time" you could always be using it to "be productive".. to create a product, make fortune, etc. One has to schedule in the time to sit with his loneliness I suppose. sigh
- dclara 13y ago
  I clicked the link and I believe your reference is good, but don't have time to read through. I agree with you that we need to find sometime to sit with our loneliness. But I tried to avoid to experience it too deep. Rather than feel it, I'd rather to see what I can do to get rid of it, say, find the root cause and remove the root cause. For example, we may feel lonely when our business does not soar with enough supporters and customers, or when we have an idea, but nobody likes it. We can do something to resolve this problem. Or When we feel lacking of objective to pursue, or we simple need to express our feelings. If it's pure emotional, but we have no SO (Significant Others, as some previous post mentioned) to share with, we have to distract ourselves by some other exciting things. For me, two things are essential to stay away from loneliness: SO and something to pursue. They make myself fill confident with self-esteem, also make my life more meaningful. Having a good SO is hard, but important. All the rest kinds are not critical. Always be myself, don't rely on other people too much, even with SO. Build something cool is also very rewarded. http://kck.st/JNqv8z http://kck.st/JNqv8z
  - lgieron 13y ago
    The belief that it's an obvious choice for a developer to spend his free time exploring ideas in hopes of getting rich is a fallacy IMO. After all, we don't advice every literate person to spend their time trying to get rich via writing a best-seller.
    - dclara 13y ago
      Yes, I agree with you that not everybody may be able to have some best selling ideas. What I meant to have something to pursue is not necessarily some successful technical or business solutions, it could be any hobby or interesting things. If it were me and I didn't have a great idea, that's fine. Since I have energy and capability to work out things, I can invest my energy into something or some idea other people have. Actually it's lower risk but may have some return in the future. I really encourage people to participate in any sort of interesting projects available on HN, including mine.
mercer 13y ago
I almost never get lonely, and love being alone. A big part of this is just personality, I think, but there are two other factors that contribute. First of all, as you mention, I practiced being comfortably alone. I intentionally traveled alone, and sometimes chose to sit in a bar all by myself, just taking in the sights and (initially) feeling very self-conscious. But another important factor is that being alone is a choice for me. If I don't want to be alone, I have plenty of close friends, acquaintances, and activities that would alleviate loneliness. In fact, the latter might be a much bigger factor that I've realized. The only times I recall feeling lonely were when I felt a need to socialize or talk to a friend, but couldn't, or being at a party with nobody to talk to.
- dclara 13y ago
  You are socially and mentally rich since you can really choose and enjoy being alone and rarely feel lonely. Good for you. But for some other people, when they feel a need to socialize or talk to a friend, like you said, they may not be able to find somebody to talk to or share their feelings with. I guess this is what the blog post meant. I wish that all of us could enjoy aloneness, this is really something precious, not only from productivity point of view. When we spend too much time living or socializing with other people, we enjoy the sharing of the information and emotion, but we may also lost ourselves. And only when we are alone, tons of ideas come to us. If you we always are surrounded by some people, we are drown like drunk. So we need to have time to keep us alone. However, some people are more or less mentally relying on other people. They almost need other people's attention every day from time to time, otherwise they feel lonely. That's why a lot of people are addictive to FB. That's why I said we need to learn to be mentally and psychologically strong, like you, so that we don't feel lonely is negative. Hope this is helpful.
  - mercer 13y ago
    Exactly! I am happy being alone because it's a choice. And you're right that the blog post is about loneliness, not solitude. I had the luck of being dragged out of my loneliness by some wonderful people (I'm not necessarily mentally and psychologically strong at all), and I only learned to be happily alone after that. But the ability to choose is crucial indeed.

by dclara 13y ago

h1karu 13y ago

my favorite quotation on loneliness: http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1963-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-think-on-these-things-chapter-23 http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/think-on-these-things/1... You have a point about how if one always has a goal to pursue one never allows himself to feel his deepest sense of loneliness and therefor he doesn't fully process it and learn from it. It's tough though as a software developer because if you have "free time" you could always be using it to "be productive".. to create a product, make fortune, etc. One has to schedule in the time to sit with his loneliness I suppose. sigh

dclara 13y ago
I clicked the link and I believe your reference is good, but don't have time to read through. I agree with you that we need to find sometime to sit with our loneliness. But I tried to avoid to experience it too deep. Rather than feel it, I'd rather to see what I can do to get rid of it, say, find the root cause and remove the root cause. For example, we may feel lonely when our business does not soar with enough supporters and customers, or when we have an idea, but nobody likes it. We can do something to resolve this problem. Or When we feel lacking of objective to pursue, or we simple need to express our feelings. If it's pure emotional, but we have no SO (Significant Others, as some previous post mentioned) to share with, we have to distract ourselves by some other exciting things. For me, two things are essential to stay away from loneliness: SO and something to pursue. They make myself fill confident with self-esteem, also make my life more meaningful. Having a good SO is hard, but important. All the rest kinds are not critical. Always be myself, don't rely on other people too much, even with SO. Build something cool is also very rewarded. http://kck.st/JNqv8z http://kck.st/JNqv8z
- lgieron 13y ago
  The belief that it's an obvious choice for a developer to spend his free time exploring ideas in hopes of getting rich is a fallacy IMO. After all, we don't advice every literate person to spend their time trying to get rich via writing a best-seller.
  - dclara 13y ago
    Yes, I agree with you that not everybody may be able to have some best selling ideas. What I meant to have something to pursue is not necessarily some successful technical or business solutions, it could be any hobby or interesting things. If it were me and I didn't have a great idea, that's fine. Since I have energy and capability to work out things, I can invest my energy into something or some idea other people have. Actually it's lower risk but may have some return in the future. I really encourage people to participate in any sort of interesting projects available on HN, including mine.

mercer 13y ago

I almost never get lonely, and love being alone. A big part of this is just personality, I think, but there are two other factors that contribute. First of all, as you mention, I practiced being comfortably alone. I intentionally traveled alone, and sometimes chose to sit in a bar all by myself, just taking in the sights and (initially) feeling very self-conscious. But another important factor is that being alone is a choice for me. If I don't want to be alone, I have plenty of close friends, acquaintances, and activities that would alleviate loneliness. In fact, the latter might be a much bigger factor that I've realized. The only times I recall feeling lonely were when I felt a need to socialize or talk to a friend, but couldn't, or being at a party with nobody to talk to.

dclara 13y ago
You are socially and mentally rich since you can really choose and enjoy being alone and rarely feel lonely. Good for you. But for some other people, when they feel a need to socialize or talk to a friend, like you said, they may not be able to find somebody to talk to or share their feelings with. I guess this is what the blog post meant. I wish that all of us could enjoy aloneness, this is really something precious, not only from productivity point of view. When we spend too much time living or socializing with other people, we enjoy the sharing of the information and emotion, but we may also lost ourselves. And only when we are alone, tons of ideas come to us. If you we always are surrounded by some people, we are drown like drunk. So we need to have time to keep us alone. However, some people are more or less mentally relying on other people. They almost need other people's attention every day from time to time, otherwise they feel lonely. That's why a lot of people are addictive to FB. That's why I said we need to learn to be mentally and psychologically strong, like you, so that we don't feel lonely is negative. Hope this is helpful.
- mercer 13y ago
  Exactly! I am happy being alone because it's a choice. And you're right that the blog post is about loneliness, not solitude. I had the luck of being dragged out of my loneliness by some wonderful people (I'm not necessarily mentally and psychologically strong at all), and I only learned to be happily alone after that. But the ability to choose is crucial indeed.