The irony of Eleanor Rigby: Reflections on Loneliness

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SocialRonin

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The irony of Eleanor Rigby is, the same people who embrace her as a fictional character in a popular song are the same people who would skip her funeral if she was real. I've lived with loneliness a long time and there's some cold hard truths I've figured out. I've often fantasized that someone who knows about my loneliness would feel empathy, and want to embrace me, and heal the wounds. That fantasy comes from the world of fiction, because people love to write about the lonely, read about the lonely, watch movies about them. I remember once watching a short film many years ago about a sad, mopey, lonely guy, reading a book in a coffee shop sullenly, and a beautiful woman approached him and started talking to him, and they started walking all over the city reflecting on life and such. And I thought, why doesn't this happen to me?

The answer is clear... when loneliness lives... when it breathes... when the carrier of this affliction feels it and projects it... the social animal people are want to stay away. A lonely person is likely to be needy, and people will run in the opposite direction as fast as they can at the first sign of that. So why do people care for fictional lonely people? Or dead lonely people? Why is it that the story of Vincent Van Gogh moves people 100 years after his death but almost no one cared while he was still alive? I'm not sure I know the answer but I can guess. Living, breathing, real loneliness is simply too close for comfort. With a little disconnect, people can open their hearts to the lonely safely, because there is no pressure for them to fill any void. No one wants that pressure.

And that's the dilemma of the lonely person. If you feel lonely, you are likely to stay lonely. If you try to reach out, feeling the pain of loneliness, people will withdraw their hands. Bottling it up is not the best strategy either, though putting on an act can at least make people feel comfortable. So what is the solution?

To know that, we must understand what loneliness is. Loneliness is not being alone. This is important to understand. Loneliness is a reaction to being alone. It is possible to be alone and not be lonely. It is hard, because human connection is one of our most innate needs. But it is possible. First of all, know that there are others like us. We may be alone, but we are not alone. Then, we must accept things as they are. Again, not easy, but when we want things to be different than they are, this is when we react adversely. This is what we call loneliness. If we can learn to be comfortable with how things are, with being alone, we will not be lonely. Then, when we approach people, we are not projecting our pain outwards. Again, this is not easy. It takes much reflection, and meditation, and if we achieve this comfort for a fleeting moment, we must keep reflecting and meditating or the comfort will slip through our grasp. But it is possible. It is okay to be alone.

I'll leave you with this quote from the great Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti:

The ecstasy of solitude comes when you are not frightened to be alone, no longer belonging to the world or attached to anything. Then, like the dawn that came up this morning, it comes silently, and makes a golden path in the very stillness, which was at the beginning, which is now, and which will be always there.
 
Characters and stories in tales are dream reflections of our true selves and who we strive to be, but that most of us are so afraid of because of as sad as it is, how we fear others will react and treat us.If we act on these feelings and dreams which the world tells and instructs us should be kept hidden and relegated to childhood. Theres a disease in the idea of society that people believe in order to work together, to truly live in society we must live by societys norms, and to challenge those norms, or to be an advocate of change, people are afraid theyll be treated as a pariah or an anarchist to be hated and cast out.

Thats why a lot of artists and musicians only truly become appreciated after theyre dead, because this world as a whole, this construct of reality hates beauty, it despises it.The only way most can appreciate beauty is through a window glass, safe from its true touch, because it would change them in some fundamental way they dont understand.

I think the reason people are drawn to fictional loneliness is because its safe and they feel safe to give their true reactions to it because theres no repercussions to that. People in real life wear countless masks and most have been hurt and humiliated so many times when theyve let that front down, that they sometimes dont let it down at all, even to themselves and forget their true faces.Or as one of my long time fictional\all too real traveling companion Roland Of Gilead would say, theyve forgotten the faces of their fathers...

I think alot of people practice lieing to themselves about who they are and the world at large until it becomes a truth of sorts, even saddly enough in their own minds.In the case of things like this. In a lot of ways there is quite honestly more truth in fiction than there is in what most call reality. Because the languages of art, music, poetry, stories, all these things are languages of the heart, and soul, and the everyday is the language of the earth the physical,the unmaleable, the mundane so its like theyre speaking two different languages, and neither truly understand the other.

I think the worlds, dreams, hopes, and triumphs of the written word are what heaven is like and the rest is just a poor imitation were stuck with until that day our eyes are once again truly opened and the masks burned away. I dont look for that here anymore and i wouldnt want it anyway because it at its best would only last a season and at its worst it wouldnt be truth, the kind you create yourself or the kind thats whispered from the lips of angels as Gods own.

Loneliness here is the natural state of man, becuase weve fell so far from grace we are essentially lost and we cant remember where were going. Some know, but most dont listen to them until its too late unfortunately, and spend their lives traipsing through the desert chasing their own man in black....


Or you know, maybe im full of crap....im never really sure lol.
 
Thanks for the response and your thoughts shadetree. As with everything in life our individual experiences with isolation and loneliness will vary from person to person. I can only hope that our personal reflections can bring a helpful perspective to others in a similar state.
 

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