Comments on: Interview with a loner

By: David Quintero

David Quintero — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:10:09 +0000

Not even dude.
Who gets to be the Bill Wilson here?

By: Abject Man

Abject Man — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:01:04 +0000

Heh. So, I’m not alone in my “loner” disease.

By: David Quintero

David Quintero — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:00:42 +0000

Hey Anthony, yeah most likely I’m not onto anything. Just thinking out loud. Thinking out loud about how I find alienation in my own…alienation! Haha. I think the “lonely switch” can be horniness more often than not, especially for young guys. It’s not that you crave human “contact” per se…

I think the gist of my post was that the Loner road is prone to much dissatisfaction. The loner is only happy with a mode of life that can only bring a deep sense of emptiness at the end of the day.

I have no way of knowing for sure. Right now I am happy with my life; and as aoefe said, why should that change just because I’m older?

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 04:28:37 +0000

I’m completely comfortable spending long periods of time alone (days), and I often do, but i still occasionally get lonely. Whats up with my lonely switch? I’ve got one but it works different than most. Thats if your onto something i guess

By: David Quintero

David Quintero — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:38:39 +0000

I think that if and when I’m officially elderly, the very very last people I will want to be around are other old people.

Wow very telling. Being forgotten preoccupies you that much? What’s so bad about being forgotten? We will all be forgotten within a couple of generations after we die. Unless we do something extraordinarily bad or good so we get inked into the history books.

Is that your plan?

By: aoefe

aoefe — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:43:10 +0000

I’ve seen senior citizen complexes where the eldery can choose to be hospitable with their neighbors or stay in their rooms – I like that there is still choice. What I find terrible is the number of people who don’t have visitors. I want to foster relationships now so that I’m not forgotten. Being alone and being forgotten two entirely different things.

By: David Quintero

David Quintero — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 17:45:00 +0000

Haha aoefe, good point.

I suppose that “loneliness,” as with other emotions, comes in a scale of gradations. At the risk of unrealistically pumping up my loner credentials, I will say that I am near the extreme of the curve but absolutely not at the end.

I have no proof that loneliness is a given when a loner becomes elderly. In fact, I’ve succumbed to the same trait I complained about…judging a foreign situation entirely based on my present perspective. Meaning it’s nothing but a suspicion and its reality is not a given and must be questioned.

By: David Quintero

David Quintero — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 17:33:20 +0000

Hi anoukange, I certainly agree that loneliness is a terrible burden for someone to shoulder who feels loneliness. However for others, the concept does not exist in their life, either because they have a full complement of people in their life or because they simply do not experience loneliness in the same manner you do. You jokingly mentioned in passing that in the absence of a social circle to witness your life, do you really exist? The whole if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it idea. I have to take it one step further…does loneliness really exist?

By: aoefe

aoefe — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:12:34 +0000

Where is the proof that staying alone at the end will be terrible? If you are truly a loner the solidutde at the end should be the same as earlier in life – no?

By: anoukange

anoukange — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:34:41 +0000

Good post, thank you. A topic that has been on my mind lately (past two years) and I truly believe that being lonely is the worst possible existence for a human being, male or female. As per usual, men at better at it, stronger to it, but I would imagine it stills bothers them, haunts them. I don’t believe in a god, but I am spiritual and I focus my beliefs on the present, and the present living on this plante with other humans. If that is all we have other than the work that we may leave behind, then the moments with others are all that can be measured while alive. If there are no witnessess to your daily life, your moments, your secrets, your abilities, in your bed beside you, eating meals across from you, then do you really exist? Of course, but what a waste for no one else to have seen the beauty, passion, thoughts, laughs, shoulders, winks, sighs, pains, and pleasures of you. If I had the ability to take away a single thing in the world that is destructive for the human condition, it would not be war, or car accidents, or reality TV….it would be an end to loneliness.