Loneliness: 2
To: Kendra McPhee
Saturday, 26 August 2017
Re: Loneliness For Lovers And Individuals
This was beautiful, Kendra. I’m honored that you took the time to respond,
and our words danced together.
I had thoughts. You had thoughts about my thoughts. Now I have thoughts about your thoughts!
Even if masks are not used, even if we share authentically — loneliness is a fundamental reality of being alive. The recognition of this fundamental reality is ancient. And indeed many great poets, Rilke comes to mind, have spoken of its essential relationship to Love.
Love begins with a recognition of another person — who is not the same as us, but different; and yet different in a way that is beautiful to us, that attracts us. In recognizing another person, there is implied space: a distance between us, that allows us to see each other — as it were, as stars against the night sky.
So when I invoke the concept of Loneliness, I don’t treat it as a simply negative experience. It is more profound than that. Perhaps even there is no greater loneliness than the loneliness between those two lovers who are most in love. As connected as they are, they will never fully map each other, can never ultimately experience exactly what the other experiences, and “death do us part” — on this side of eternity, anyways.
This suggests a startling correlation between expression, loneliness and love. The more we express, the lonelier we become. The lonelier we become, the greater the love that we may experience. Odd that we conceive of these as inverses, naturally opposed, when they may give each other strength.
This question you raise about the relationship between Authenticity and Feelings is fascinating. The dynamic is subtle. If I become responsible for the feelings of others — then I can hardly express myself without running a thousand filters, without radar-ing out to make sure it is safe, without simulating how you will react, before you yourself react.
Come to think of it, this is a form of prejudice — in which I am pre-judging how you will judge me, and based on that, I am giving you the version of me that I think you want to hear. Perhaps this is what you were saying about masks, but thought in a different way.
Those who express themselves bravely: would their expression conceivably lead them to deliberately run roughshod over feelings? Attacking ideas and institutions is a peaceful warfare that we celebrate in this country; it allows for Kennedy’s “bloodless revolutions”. But attacking individuals, that too has a place, I suppose, although I prefer to avoid it. If I wrestle an individual, I want to wrestle their ideas, their strengths — not engage in ad hominem nastiness. But that is the spirit that moves in me. Spirit moves through all beings who let it, but in different ways. I suppose Spirit has its reasons for moving others to trade in blows, even low blows — although these reasons are obscure to me now.
To stay open, to receive even spite, to welcome opposition, to take an arrow to the heart and say ‘yes’ — Is this not Mara’s assault on Buddha? Everything burns up inside me in a fire of many meanings. Nobody can hurt me unless I let them. It’s all flowers.
So how then, are we to relate? A healthy way, it seems to me, is for two people to celebrate each other’s truths, without placing on each other the burden of agreement. Indeed, to celebrate the other person’s expressiveness in no way needs to mean agreement. Agreement would require an exhausting investigation of each claim, each thought — an Inquisition demanding creativity conform to doctrine.
But if we go the other way, we set each other free! The important thing is that you and I, we are each on our own journey, seeking ever-elusive truths, and we have these blessed moments where we meet each other on the road, and can encourage each other onwards.
No other expectation is placed, other than the hope that, sooner or later, something profound will turn up from the dialogue, something that will shake us to the core. Because where there are differences, there are opportunities — spaces for love, beauty, and truth so strange, we could never have planned such a symphony.

