Solitude

from JoeUser Forums
The need to be alone (that is, to be as completely apart from every other human being as it's possible for me to get) has been part of my life from early childhood. I am gregarious by neccesity, sociable only when compelled by circumstance (I work in an office; circumstance compels me to associate with co-workers, to spend time talking with them - fortunately, conversation largely restricted to the work-role is in itself a form of isolation, though an unsatisfactory form).

I'm also married, and love my wife. I like being with her, in particular I like talking with her, and listening to her tell tales of her former lives, so radically different from my own. No matter how much I care for her I still need to be alone, devoid of human company, devoid even of the indication of them denoted by the incessant babel-babble of the TV.

In solitude I find a kind of self-obliteration. I don't think, or if I think it's in disconnected images. My aim in being alone is to disconnect myself from everything, even or especially myself. To put every association that could remind me of my necessary and unavoidable connection to the world and its endless demands for my attention (and by 'world' I mean the demands of my own flesh, its hungers, its weaknesses, its constant crying to be satisfied, the wailing of a helpless thing living in a universe with which it cannot deal) as far from me as I can.

I've often wished, even as a tiny child (I have memories dating from when I was three) to wake up and find myself the only living human being on the planet.

People weary me. What they want, or appear to want, largely disgusts me. Their ambitions amuse and appal me. Their lusts amaze me by their banality. Their refusal to recognize even the simplest and most basic principles under which they might live together in peace and tolerance infuriates me. The incessant betrayals they practice against the ideals they espouse leaves me dumbfounded at the extent of their duplicity, their greed, and their stupidity.

In short, I am a dedicated and convinced misanthropist and I need some time, every day, when I am free of them - no matter whether I also care for a particular individual or not.

Solitude was my first addiction and I have no doubt that, whan all the other addictions in my life have fallen away, having proved themselves empty, this will remain.

And no, I'm not expecting any replies to this.
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3,009 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Sorry to disappoint you, hehe.

This was an amazing read, Emperor. While your intellect and the depth of your understanding of the world and human nature often place your articles far above my grasp, you have written several things that have been beautiful, intriguing food for thought for me.

This is definitely one of those.

Don't you think that all humans crave some level of solitude?
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
People weary me.


Tell me about it.

Their refusal to recognize even the simplest and most basic principles under which they might live together in peace and tolerance infuriates me.


I assume you aren't refering to religion.

This is why I love animals so much. They're lucky they don't know about any of the bullshit that goes on in the world.

Politics is probably the biggest bullshit of them all.
But why the adult content warning?
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
I can empathise with this need you have for solitude. In some aspects it is pretty beneficial to an individual to be alone and nurture themselves in whatever shape or form they see fit. With three kids and a husband who constantly needs my attention, and I love them dearly, I crave solitude too at times. And that's the hardest thing to get at times because they won't leave me alone!LOl!

Your solitude though is one that I see from reading is not like that of others who wants solitude to just be alone. Your solititude is what I imagine would be like you totally letting go of everything around you, being in another hemisphere, like floating on your back on a watery surface and letting yourself drift endlessly, not in fear or hopelessness but in peace and tranquility. That's what I get from this. Interesting view points Emperor. Like Tex said, much food for thought!
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Firstly, thanks for the comments.

I assume you aren't refering to religion.


No, I wasn't. I was referring to the apparently widespread misconception of citizenship, restricted solely to the concept of rights while ignoring or denying any understanding of obligation. I was referring, in fact, to the gross spectacle of entrenched interest, partisan prejudice and venal self-seeking that passes for politics here. No, I don't deny that such things happen elsewhere: but America is the home of the last great political dream left in the world, and to see its leaders and its citizens betray that dream through ignorance and self-interest nauseates and enrages me.

Don't you think that all humans crave some level of solitude?


Yes, I do. I also think that most humans are afraid of solitude and its silence, despite their craving or perhaps because of it, since to feed it requires that you face yourself without defence. Silence in the world outside myself helps me approach silence within myself - the cessation of the infernal chatter of everyday concerns; what needs to be done at work, whether I'll have a job in three months, how to pay for repairs to the car, the rent, and still feed our mutual vices; an endless suffocating blanket of meaningless noise. Solitude, to me, is the base from which I strive to become an absence balanced upon a vacancy surrounded by utter emptiness. It is the death of the rational mind with its unfailing effort to match means to ends - ends which are as unimportant, as trivial, as the means which are meant to achieve them.

Kill all rational thought. Murder it with silence.

I long ago came to a point where I believed (and still believe) that the only purpose in life worthy to be striven for is a good death - and a good death is one in which I die at peace with myself - even if, at that moment, I am at war with all the rest of the world.

like floating on your back on a watery surface and letting yourself drift endlessly, not in fear or hopelessness but in peace and tranquility.


It seems to me that peace, for most, is merely the absence of something else - the absence of fear, the absence of pain, the absence of doubt. Peace, to me, is not an absence but a presence, a thing in itself, deriving from self-knowledge and self-acceptance - and a resolute disregard for what the world calls morality and virtue. Like the song says "I want what I want" and most of what I want would revolt and terrify the majority of you, being utterly antithetical to the commonplace shibboleths of Christian culture. Morality, virtue, both are in my case a form of deceit, practiced so that the rest of you will not see what I know myself to be, and so will not concern yourselves with me beyond everyday courtesies.

What I am I am content to be. And in essence what I am is a practiced murderer of rational thought.