Skip to main content

Isolated and Alone

By Carl S ~


No one can see it, but I'm suffering from a disability. Everything about me looks “normal.” I have an inflammatory disease which I see as permanent, though I'm about to have some relief in a week or so. It affects all the muscles and racks the nerves in my body. In spite of your concern, you aren't experiencing these symptoms. Now, spouse and friends may say they “feel your pain,” they don't, while with their prayers they console themselves into believing they're doing something. I want to keep it that way; I want that distancing. Unremitting pain is hell, but fortunately, there's a lot to distract me from it. It's a bitch, but I'm damned if I'll let it win. And it's natural for people to be sympathetic about the sufferings of the debilitated, but after a while, they find such sufferers aggravating. (I know one woman who believes her sister, a resident in an assisted-living facility for years, was overdosed on morphine. After so many years, it had to be a temptation for the caretakers.) Everyone is expected to be healthy, to pull his and her own weight, to “do your part.” For the record, it's just the way things are.

This is about being alone in one's own suffering. It's also about being alone in one's own experiences, those that one can't possibly explain, because they're so personal, like those of the lone astronaut left alive in “2001 The Space Odyssey.” Many gays have had to accept isolation. Call these experiences a gift or a curse; they isolate you from those around you, permanently. Somehow, it doesn't help to know others feel the same, and understand. Right now, there are men and women in their 70's who are weeping as they remember the molestations they lived through when they were in their teens and single digit ages. The survivors of holocausts, rape, and wars are alone in their sufferings. No one understands, and everything is buried within them; for those are the terms society is willing to accept for what it cannot and is unwilling to understand. Many of them die lonely, by suicide, the ultimate aloneness.

I cannot help but feel outside humanity, and that's probably been the norm since I was a kid. I was molested myself, at the age of seven, so that experience might explain this, and it may be other victims share the same relationship with the world. Personally, this has not been altogether a negative. Sure, I got picked on for feeling “different” and relied on a family with no idea why I'd suddenly become a bad boy who got into all sorts of trouble. My siblings had their own problems. There was no one to confide in to tell my experience to. Hell, I wasn't even aware of the effect it had on me.

There was never a God or secret friend. Being different meant being all alone to figure out solutions on my own, and to make sometimes disastrous decisions on my own. Without being able to share feelings, thoughts and opinions, I had to deal with them alone. (Even now, I hate support groups.) I learned to cope with unexpected situations, to survive by being passive-aggressive, long before the term was known. This made me intellectually and emotionally independent. Perhaps some are born into solitude, while others have it forced on them.

Considering those who chose to work in solitude, those inventors, novelists, philosophers, discoverers, etc., such as Darwin, James Baldwin, preferring solitude looks like a very good thing. In fact, for some individuals, it's the best way to be. Compare their lives with those of “holy” individuals who have embraced solitude. There's a big difference between us and them. The “holy ones” want to be alone so they can wrap themselves inside themselves, call this enraptment ”God” or “Presence,” and ponder what they learned about the God and/or Presence by intellectually masturbating in their minds. I have read some of their accounts. They interpret their thoughts in solitude as a great access to spiritual wisdom. Our solitude, on the other hand, involves being intellectually engaged in the realities outside ourselves.

I take my place among a long line of traditional loners: independent heretics, blasphemers, and freethinkersNow, I understand there are people who need people, mostly women, who feel incomplete without others. Many find this need met in congregations. This is one reason I would never fit into a church group. I'm a loner who just happens to go through the minimum of motions to function in society. Now, regular churchgoers will never relate to me, and I understand why. It's against my nature to want to be among those who don't want to think with any depth. For example: They may be shocked if I mention their Jesus might have been thought to be gay in Jewish society, where it was expected a man of his age should be married with children. People go to church to avoid uncomfortable truths that I accept. This applies to any freethinker in that setting. Nobody wants to hear about your struggles with and overcoming of doubts, in the same way society wants to keep the poor and victims locked away out of sight. This makes me an outlier, if not an outcast. It's an honor to be a failure in such company.

And so I take my place among a long line of traditional loners: independent heretics, blasphemers, and freethinkers who are condemned, shunned, persecuted, and ignored. Despite our solitary state, maybe we have an obligation, a burden: We loners are needed, so we shouldn't keep our mouths shut. Usually, it takes a very long time until, “The freethinking of today becomes the common sense of tomorrow.” All of which is to say, to those who are suffering with the loss of friends, family, and community: it's okay you are alone. Think about it. Maybe, just maybe, you always have been. You just never had the chance to think about it before. There are worse things, such as being welcome as long as you agree not to be yourself. Meanwhile, I and my pains will have to be as one person.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

I can fix ignorance; I can't fix stupid!

By Bob O ~ I 'm an atheist and a 52-year veteran of public education. I need not tell anyone the problems associated with having to "duck" the "Which church do you belong to?" with my students and their parents. Once told by a parent that they would rather have a queer for their sons' teacher than an atheist! Spent HOURS going to the restroom right when prayers were performed: before assemblies, sports banquets, "Christmas Programs", awards assemblies, etc... Told everyone that I had a bladder problem. And "yes" it was a copout to many of you, but the old adage (yes, it's religious) accept what you can't change, change that which you can and accept the strength to know the difference! No need arguing that which you will never change. Enough of that. What I'd like to impart is my simple family chemistry. My wife is a Baptist - raised in a Baptist Orphanage (whole stories there) and is a believer. She did not know my religi