alone but not lonely

I think I said earlier that modern people perhaps had low tolerance to loneliness, or the state of being alone.

Of course loneliness is a universal feeling; it's not anything modern, but before the internet, people knew how to cope with it; they had a lot of chance to learn.  Or maybe they were just used to the state of being alone.  They didn't have Facebook or Twitter or even email - which also must have made them much more patient.

Either way, I think the tolerance towards loneliness is a great asset that modern people lost in exchange for convenience.  We can connect with friends and strangers anytime anywhere but we never get enough of it, thus we never feel satisfied - the more we connect, the more connections we seek, and the more connections we seek, the lonelier we feel.  The internet created modern loneliness??

I notice I'm being kind of persistent on this topic, but this strong demand for social networks really interest me for some reason.  And I happened to read an essay that was very similar to what I've been thinking, written by Shozo Kajima （加島祥造）.  I'd never heard of him before but apparently, he used to teach English literature at universities, and he's currently 90 years old, living in Shinshu alone "appreciating the power of life and nature".  This is the abstract/translation of what he says in the essay titled "It is not lonely to be alone":


What is happiness?  Having a lot of money, a stable life being guaranteed, being healthy, having a social status?  These are only prerequisite conditions to be happy.  In a rich society where you can get anything you want, you must start from thinking what is really important to you.  When you are surrounded by too many things that are unnecessary, it becomes difficult to see who you really are.

When the war ended and I was released from the army, I worked as a journalist and started teaching at universities.  I got married and raised two children; built a house and achieved every "prerequisite of happiness".  Now people ask me why I decided to leave everything and live in a place where there's only nature.  It's the same as asking what happiness is.  I have no answer; all I can say is that I decided to put an end to the life of excessive demand.  I've become to demand less.

Life gets easier when you accept things the way they are.  When animals are put into a cage at the zoo, they first try to escape.  When they understand that it's useless, they become docile.  It's not that they give up.  Giving up means quitting to live.  They just accept their new selves in the cage.  People try to escape the various cages in society.  But it's useless because when you get out of a cage, the next cage waits in front of you.  That is what it means to live in a society.

When I became sixty, I read an English translation of Tao.  Do not demand too much, leave yourself to nature, and accept yourself - Tao's philosophy attracted me, and I found a special line that fell to my heart: Alone, but not lonely.

There are many people who fear being alone(孤独kodoku).  They always try to connect with others through the internet.  But does that really dissolve loneliness(孤独)?

There are two meanings in the word 孤独.  孤 means to be alone(孤立).  When people are left behind from society, they become alone and it makes them feel lonely.  In that situation, it is important to acquire the power to endure the state of being alone(孤立).  That power is called independence(独立).  The word alone(孤独) actually includes the meaning of being independent.

Then what does it mean to be independent?  In short, it means to trust yourself: to accept who you are, and to realize you are living at this moment.  It is most important to think about what is really important to you and what is unnecessary to you.  When you see that, you are independent.

Do not give up.  Accept who you are now, and stop demanding for things that are unnecessary to you.


As I was translating this, I realized that 孤独(kodoku) had two meanings: 1. to be alone, and 2. to be lonely.  I guess this itself says that people often think being alone means being lonely, rather than being independent.  But I really like what this essay points out.  And I think it's kind of neat that English doesn't mix the two together - alone and lonely; they're similar but different.