The Choke.

Here I am.
Alone vs. Lonely, Solitude vs. Sadness.

Thoreau discusses this. This is his question, and this is my question too-
"Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while under these circumstances, --have our own thoughts to cheer us?"

Self-reliance. Can I be self-reliant for my own happiness? Thoroeau, he finds "it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating."

I agree with this. I read that line, and identified with it completely. I have known this for years- that I cannot spend too much time with other people or I go insane. I have been saying this for years. It is my excuse to distance myself from people to find who I am again. But will the cycle ever end? As much as I am crushed by old friends abandoning my friendship, I am guilty of the same thing. As soon as someone gets too close to me, I push them right away. Is the solution to never get close to people, or to never get sick of people? I could hope for a happy medium, but this is something that will just take time to figure out.

So yes, I enjoy loneliness- "sometimes I'd like to be around noone for ten straight years," Chris Conley put it perfectly. "But I know this feeling can't bring me places, and I know I'm losing lots of ground. But to keep up means to get up." Sometimes I don't want to get up.

Yet, when I do find myself alone at last... That's when I wish I wasn't. I long for anything- a text message even, just to know I'm still a part of someone else's life. This is not what I want. This is not going to help me become a noble gas, it will only keep me on the ground.

Perhaps the fact that being lonely makes me want communication with others is what makes it worth it, because I realize that I DO want communication, and that I don't completely hate everyone. Like distance makes the heart grow fonder. I can have time to recognize, and miss, the good in people. However, I feel like it's not so 'altruistic' as it seems. I feel my loneliness is still selfish, and I have my own motives.

I want loneliness so I can see who still cares about me, and who will make an effort to show me. But who cares about who cares? What does it matter, if so-and-so texts me because they miss me? Does that make me a better person? Well, maybe it will make me feel better about myself. But should I let that determine who I think I am? No. Because so-and-so might not always miss me. And when they don't miss me, that doesn't mean I've lost all my merit. But by relying on so-and-so's reaction to shape my views of myself could easily make me think I've lost all my merit.

People's reactions to me can influence my ideas of who I am. But they should never determine those ideas. This is something I need to experiment with, and apply to myself now.

My next question is... How do I define myself independently, without the help of others?