The Story of Aloneness.

So much isolation and aloneness. Loneliness, apart-ness; it fuels, in the story, all the things we label "bad". The human condition seems to be one of many islands, and we want to feel we are not an isolated mass anymore. Murder is the abandonment of any hope of empathy, of feeling a part of everything. Greed is the same with a bit more restraint; there is no hope of joining, so there is no respect for life, just taking care of the only being that seems real - the self. This self, this "me", is so precious; it's the only thing we know, and we long for someone to care, to feel that this isolated being is as important to someone else as it is to us, thus validating its existence. Falling in love is so powerful; it seems to bridge that enormous perceived gap between individuals. Good therapy is powerful too; the therapist cares. They have no concerns, in that hour, except yours; they may be paid, but they show us that we are as important and special as we feel to ourselves, or perhaps they show us that worthiness for the first time. The most powerful stories (It's A Wonderful Life comes to mind) comfort us that a life rich with friends - those others that validate us - is a life worth living. Everything we do is to try to be whole again. If we feel separate from the Earth, we trash it. War between peoples is a compromise - at least we can feel a part of a certain group, bound together by a conflict with another group. There is so much underlying despair, it seems, the abandonment of ever being a part of, or some acceptance of being apart. Yet this is just the story of the dream of separation. However powerful or hypnotic the dream seems to be, however much other facets of the story reinforce it, it is an illusion. The illusion can just drop away. And there is everything, and nothing; there is only the play of life, happening as it must. Even the most lonely, isolated, shunned individual is the one. There is only that. The freedom gained is your whole life, and everything you ever thought important, lost forever.