Not that there’s only one.

When you embrace your loneliness, soon you start to realize the treasures it has to offer.

Loneliness is not a natural state for a human; the strength of the human species is highly social if it isn’t because of the capacity to work towards a common goal, communicate experiences and learn from each other’s ideas, nature would have swallowed us whole many moons ago.

I mean, think about the concept of “culture”, man it’s so deep. You see interesting, complex behaviors in other species, even social behaviors like role division and hierarchies in bee hives, prioritization, and leadership in wolf packs, and many others could be quoted. But you don’t talk about the “culture” of kangaroos, do you?

And culture is one of those huge forces that shape our perception, and for an entity that’s self-aware perception is a huge topic. How do we assign meaning to events, actions, and people? What are our parameters to embrace or reject? What choices lead to more constructive outcomes, what choices put me and my “herd” at risk? How does the community react to deviancy?

And so, our wiring is set in a way that we seek consciously or not, acceptance from our community because out of a community we’re taking big risks. That’s why I said loneliness is not a natural state for a person; I dare say that there are degrees of loneliness that can be viewed as deviations and as such, they provoke a punitive attitude from others.

And that’s when I start seeing value.

Culture is either spontaneous, or it is intentionally shaped. And I do believe it’s both, but intending to influence culture intentionally is tricky. It’s also within the reach of the silent observers, and people who choose to live separated from it. There’s a degree of herd behavior available to all of us when we dissolve into a larger whole of like-minded individuals, and it’s so natural and possibly unconscious that it may hinder us from seeing clearly, and critically what occurs within such a group.

So what’s the perk?

Oh, many.

So, the freedom of choosing a position in every aspect I consider important is one of such perks. Postures typically come in bundles (wrapped in ideology and dogma), and if you’re looking to be embraced by a specific community, you have to buy the whole bundle, as is.

But this is not the one I wanted to talk about, I actually made a full detour of what I intended to write about.

The biggest perk I’m obtaining from my loneliness is the ability to create my own realities, my own characters, my own conflicts, and worlds, shape them, explore them, and resolve their very mysteries.

Yes, this post is about writing stories.

I find myself being healed from my chronic dissatisfaction with the mundane, by shaping the extraordinary; I find my boredness of dealing with dull people resolved by speaking to characters that have an actual story to tell and the guts to live their own lives; I find my apathy disrupted by the expectation of that long-awaited revenge, or that wild night of surrendering to the charms of darkness.

When you write, it’s not always about the outcome, heck, I’m not sure if my worlds are that much tailored to my mindset that they may be deemed inaccessible, or pretentious by my audience. I don’t know man, I care about people sincerely, but the temptation of just traveling those dimensions on my own terms beats my desire for selling books. Maybe that enjoyment gets passed on to my audience, I certainly hope so.

You know what’s fun? Being lonely also helps me enjoy a lot more my time with other people, with people I love, care about, or simply like. I genuinely feel like I want to make the most out of those conversations, of that valuable part of their life another human is actually deciding to share with me.

I know, I always have to write in paradoxes, but the fact that I enjoy loneliness doesn’t mean I don’t resent it sometimes. I feel like I need to find that sweet spot because I do miss being with friends and just enjoying others, even meeting new people. I just don’t want to lose access to my worlds, my ideas, and my reflections because it’s so much easier to just adopt external culture and behaviors.

Is it possible to enjoy a good balance between the two things? Can I be a not-so-lonely loner?

Bye friends, enjoy the silence.