I wanted to explore and write about the power of being alone by ourselves, in light of the passing away of a dear friend I knew from high school.
When we are little, we are able to be by ourselves, play alone, with an imagination full flow, nothing bothering us. We are just living life to the fullest, absolutely absorbed in the tiniest and most intricate details of existence. Then as we grow up, the cultures and people around us start saying “You need to have friends”, “don’t be alone go hang out with friends” Or “Go do something, don’t just sit around” or “Why are you alone” (as if being alone is a problem for someone else). Again and again, we are being told by others who were told by someone else, that essentially to be complete we must be with others and do some things.
With this continuous repeats of that narrative (now on self-help playing on our own heads), when we are not with others and not doing anything, we start to replay those memories and create conclusions. Conclusions that we are not complete without those things. That narrative itself creates cascades of other emotions and feelings that wash through our bodies and alternate the biochemistry of our bodies. Which soon would be recognized as mental illness and big pharma would create pills to fix it. (Not really fix, but to just cover it up. Anti-depression drugs are a big seller)
Once we taste the elevation of our inner state by doing something or being with others, without those would start to feel very bored and empty, if we have done those as a way to fill up from an internal place of lack. These experiences create a longing for more of those external things as we use them to fill us up temporarily.
I grew up in a culture where it is impossible to be away from people and so much of the fabric of life is crafted depending on and helping each other. Moving from that to a culture of super individual independence society, initially was a hard thing to grasp. In the US you can literary stay inside the house and do everything you want without ever leaving the house. From having so much interaction and being used to that much interaction to keep me elevated, to not having that was a very tough thing at first.
We come here alone and we go out alone. But when we are here, are we not able to be alone? When we come here as animals, we need to be in groups just to survive. But when we come here as humans, we now have the super-intelligence to override those animal instincts to consciously respond to events in life. We have the capacity to conduct ourselves without being in a group. We have everything we need within us to supercharge ourselves.
If our whole experience of human life has been entertained by external experiences and replaying those recorded memories again and again in various combinations, to be alone by ourselves, and to not pay attention to replayed recorded memories, would be a scary experience. “What would it be without the drama that has entertained me all this time? I would be bored out of my mind” Because being bored they say is a problem.
If we are simply able to sit still and pay so powerful attention to all the sensory inputs experienced inside the body, heartbeat, breath coming in and out, and various other sensations within the body, that experience itself can keep us occupied and entertained. This experience is not replaying recorded experiences from the past or crafting future experiences with recorded memories — this experience is a powerful awareness and bringing attention to the very human life experienced within the body to the fullest in each moment. It takes enormous courage to step away from a learned compulsion to drama and various external situations used as a way to keep us entertained, into being absolutely entertained just by our existence, subtlest things experienced in the body and supercharge ourselves.
If we can just be absolutely entertained by paying attention to our own nature, without needing anything from outside or wishing outside happen in a certain way, how empowering is it? Then we don’t need a whole village to keep us entertained. If we don’t know how to be entertained by our own nature and always looking for something out there to keep us occupied, we will always need and always be hooked for something from out there. But once we know how to be absolutely occupied and blissed-out just by our own nature, by the subtleties of human experience, where everything is happening and where the whole world is experienced, we no longer need to rely on things from out there to entertain us. We could never be bored, whatever is and is not out there.
This, replaying recorded experiences from the memory business, takes a huge toll on the energies in the body. But to just pay super attention to the inside, charges the energies. From this charged up super alert state, whatever happens outside, now we can respond and do what is needed.
Once we supercharge ourselves, now stepping into external experiences and groups will create a completely difference experience. Because we no longer need those to fill us up. From a place of fullness, we now share our light outwards. From a place of fullness, external situations will no longer start to affect what is felt inside, and what is felt inside is supercharged with vibrance regardless of outside! — Now this would be an amazing state to be in to spend our beautiful lives on this wonderful planet.