Leaving the rat race for more cheaper, more graceful living.

[Taomeow]

So, I went to dinner with my Chinese friend and asked him the "unlonely" question.  He said, nope, no such word in Chinese, it's simply "lonely" with an addition of the universal-reversal "bu" -- not, no, no such thing.  But he had an interesting explanation.  "Not lonely" is normal.  It does not need a special word, because it's an implied state of affairs -- like what you breathe is air but you don't specify that you "breathe air," and what you walk on is "Earth" but you don't specify that you "took a walk on Earth."  So "not lonely" is a default state you didn't need to specify.  Whereas "lonely" is an abnormal state, and that needed a special word to describe it.  Like "breathe smog" or "walk on the Moon."

 

@Spotless: 

8 hours ago, Spotless said:

     

Lonely

Pronunciation of Lonely
/lˈə͡ʊnlɪ/, /lˈə‍ʊnlɪ/, /l_ˈəʊ_n_l_ɪ/

Antonyms for lonely:

cheerful,  comforting,  inhabited,  bright, lightsome,  social,  blithesome, heartwarming,  jolly,  linked,  cheery, lighthearted,  jocund, communicating, hopeful, Chaperoned,  merry,  blithe,  festive, adjoining,  neighboring,  buoyant,  next door, sunshiny,  contiguous,  accompanied,  connected,  cordial,  cheering,  elated,  joyful,  attached, optimistic,  joyous, Escorted,  mirthful,  adjacent,  friendly,  attended,  encouraging,  coupled.

  

Thank you for the list. 

 

Curious:  do you ever feel lonely?  And if you don't, which word from this list best describes that opposite-of-lonely feeling -- "inhabited," "chaperoned," or "neighboring?"

 

Matter of fact, you can share sorrow or have others share your sadness when you're not lonely, but this doesn't make you "cheerful," "jolly," or "festive," much less "blithersome."  And you are not necessarily "coupled" when you are not lonely, and you don't have to be "hopeful" or "encouraging."  The list is of words that may be associated with some instances of moods and emotions for which loneliness may be an obstacle, but none of these words are even close to the antonym for "lonely" I was after...  and when I said it does not exist, I didn't say it lightly, my primary education is in comparative linguistics... 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Taomeow

[liminal_luke]

OK....I`m taking the antonym of lonely challenge!  Looking through my online thesaurus, I was initially attracted to buoyant. Like lonely, it`s a nuanced feeling word.  I like the uplifted feeling of buoyant which nicely opposes lonely`s downward facing gaze.  The trouble with buoyant, in my view, is there`s no sense of the interpersonal.  While a person can feel alone without being lonely, lonliness is at it`s heart about feeling separate from other people. It`s interpersonal.

 

Then it hit me...how about buoyed? (Buoyed is generally a verb, and that might be a disqualification.  You can dress it up in adjectival clothes though.) To feel buoyed is to be lifted up by the perceived presence of someone (or something) else, just like to be lonely is to be cast down by the perceived absense of someone else.

 

He was lonely in high-school, the spiritual nerd reading the Bhagavad Gita while everyone else went on about football.  Only when he found the tribe of weirdos on Taobums did he start to feel the reassuring presence of human community.  Here he was welcomed, supported, and felt himself at last a buoyed boy. 

 

Anyway, that`s my pick.

Edited August 13, 2017 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

Thanks for trying.  Buoyed is not interpersonal either...  I used to love to swim to a buoy wherever a lake or river had them, and grab on to it to just relax and rest and indeed feel supported...  but supported by a hollow metal dummy and my own effort exerted in reaching it, come to think of it.  A buoyed feeling is a nice feeling, but you were still alone with that buoy that is not human, and if you happened to feel lonely, I doubt it would do anything about that. 

 

Incidentally, not theoretical for me in terms of what feelings may surface and hit you like a ton of bricks as you are trying to cross a wide river and suddenly realize you're in the middle of it and there's nothing but water to your four directions and the sky to the fifth, no buoy is not a problem, but all of a sudden there's no human being in the whole universe...  in my case it hit me, for the first and only time, in its worst form -- a profound sense of "alone in the universe" -- in the middle of Sozh.  I'm guessing most people here have never heard of it, yet it's the third longest river in Europe, and 10 kilometers wide at the mouth -- the spot where this existential loneliness suddenly, without a warning, became the only reality there is, was about 3 km wide, I planned to cross it and felt very comfortable until the sound of perhaps a motor boat miles away that you could only hear when your ear was in the water...  the sound knowing nothing of you, you knowing nothing of why you hear it amidst eternal silence...  but I digress.    

 

 

[Spotless]

15 hours ago, Taomeow said:

So, I went to dinner with my Chinese friend and asked him the "unlonely" question.  He said, nope, no such word in Chinese, it's simply "lonely" with an addition of the universal-reversal "bu" -- not, no, no such thing.  But he had an interesting explanation.  "Not lonely" is normal.  It does not need a special word, because it's an implied state of affairs -- like what you breathe is air but you don't specify that you "breathe air," and what you walk on is "Earth" but you don't specify that you "took a walk on Earth."  So "not lonely" is a default state you didn't need to specify.  Whereas "lonely" is an abnormal state, and that needed a special word to describe it.  Like "breathe smog" or "walk on the Moon."

 

@Spotless: 

  

Thank you for the list. 

 

Curious:  do you ever feel lonely?  And if you don't, which word from this list best describes that opposite-of-lonely feeling -- "inhabited," "chaperoned," or "neighboring?"

 

Matter of fact, you can share sorrow or have others share your sadness when you're not lonely, but this doesn't make you "cheerful," "jolly," or "festive," much less "blithersome."  And you are not necessarily "coupled" when you are not lonely, and you don't have to be "hopeful" or "encouraging."  The list is of words that may be associated with some instances of moods and emotions for which loneliness may be an obstacle, but none of these words are even close to the antonym for "lonely" I was after...  and when I said it does not exist, I didn't say it lightly, my primary education is in comparative linguistics... 

I enjoyed your Chinese friends response - and the list is tepid to say the least (it was a cut and paste from some online collection).

I think the root of "not-lonely" is a certain level of a satisfied state. Loneliness does not necessarily imply need or want of companionship nor is it necessarily a disconnect - though it is often one or the other or both - but it does seem to be less than a satisfied state while not nessarily a hungry one. Loneliness is a certain something missing vs not enough missing to feel as though their is a void of some sort.

 

it is hard to be in a relatively satisfied state and be lonely. By satisfied I do not require that the person be happy or living a full life - simply that they are distracted enough or enjoined into enough by the various balls they have in the air that a certain threshold of "wanting" or "missing" has not been reached.

 

This is fun - like trying to eat some pie but only really chewing on a bit of crust.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Spotless

[blue eyed snake]

loneliness and alone.

 

alone is easy, that is being without other people. But many people who are alone do not feel lonely. And many people living together with other people feel bitterly lonely.

 

Loneliness is coming, indeed spotless, from being unfulfilled.

 

But where you can think of digressions as being an aid to fulfillment. I think that's not the point. When you need to do things to be not lonely you're covering up your feelings of loneliness. 

 

to me, it is something like not being able to be content with your own being, with not loving your innermost self with all it's bad and good habits. So being unfulfilled with love for your own being, feeling unworthy or things like that.

 

Now why do people then feel the hollowness abating when they meet a good friend ( or a lover )?

Maybe, because that good friend is able to so thoroughly enjoy your personality that you start to ' believe' that yourself. That you are indeed a lovable good being with a lot of bad habits. but ultimately I suppose that this feeling of being oke must be firmly rooted in the ego, then you will not feel lonely anymore.

 

ah..just my ramblings.

 

and about being unlonely being the defaultstate.

I read in the paper that 30% of the elderly report feeling lonely.....

[CloudHands]

15 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I hope people who know Chinese or Japanese might chime in.  I would expect a word for this, a specific word, to still exist in those languages because they are so designed as to preserve their history, and their history is that of "unloneliness" having long been the first and main goal in  people's lives.  Perhaps their notion of "face" in the social sense has something to do with it, but it's far from a complete overlap.  I'll try to ask a Chinese friend and his son who knows some Japanese today when I see them. 

 

In french could be "entouré". Same as being surrounded but meaning feeling surrounded by close benevolent people, a pack, to have an entourage. Could say : I feel well "entouré".

It's something that also comes with necessity, dig on how/why MS-13 was created ? any gang... actually, gypsy people or my old illegal migrant neighbors from Mongolia were also very communitarian. It comes with propositions you couldn't refuse.

African frontiers that doesn't respect ethnies was one of the tools to prevent their autonomy, they still live that thing.

That's exactly a tribal or ethical thing, it's still very alive as "entraide" is needed. In the country land in china the close/immediate family is not the nuclear (2+1 or 2+2) but is as minimal as your street, weeding, fest, funeral is your street thing.

 

Once the need disappears the manifestation follows. Leaving the rigid world of necessity you enter the embarrassing world of "choices". Actually I'm glad I'm not forced to have friends or "bros", so when I have it I know I have. To stick or not to stick with the family has been challenging enough.

 

Another thing it doesn't help with is back-stab. As an effective remedy against loneliness I'd rather suggest dantian breathing.

Edited August 13, 2017 by CloudHands

[silent thunder]

What a potent bone to chew... there is strong medicine in this question for me, what is the opposite of lonely?

Its presence resonates so palpably... I can almost taste it.  It's closely related to a question I've long harbored which is 'why do I continue to support this manifestation and not suicide?  connection is my raw answer, it's why I joined the bums... to cultivate conscious connection.  It's why I smile at strangers and am not stand-offish.  Connection maintains my manifestation.  But that's not it, not all of it and words are such clumsy burdensome beasts in these areas... 

 

 

 

lonely... lonesome and yet not alone, surrounded by all, yet lonely...

disconnected.  separate.  unfastened. untethered.  isolated.  withdrawn.  abandoned.  excluded.

 

 

alone, yet not lonely.  connected, integrated...  interwoven... belonging.

connected, imbued, entwined, integral, inalienable, inseperable, undifferentiatable (that's my word I guess, don't see it listed and is rather chewy, but is entertaining and seems to transmit the idea of inalienability that I am trying to convey), cherished, belonging, associated,

hmm...

inalienable

unified

merged

kinship

 

perhaps kinship

 

There is a sense of tribe that connotes connection and belonging and some element of being cherished or valued.  Yet tribal also connotes a self group and 'others' who are 'not tribe', which seems to shift the lonely from individual to group... so doesn't work.

 

Acknowledged returns again and again in this realm for me...  when folks are reaching out to me... strangers, or friends.  They seem to be not needing even for me to agree with their sentiments when reaching out, but to establish/reinforce a connection through simple acknowledgement of their presence and whatever idea they are sharing, even if no agreement is made, the simple acknowledgement of another seems to be what is sought... to complete the moment.  Resolution of the individual through acknowledged connection.

 

Too many words now, but this... this is stirring deep, potent waters.  Going to go be empty with this for some time.

 

Thanks bums. 

 

 

 

[CloudHands]

15 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I`m asking myself if my adopted country of Mexico is a particularly tribal place.  Yes and no, I guess.  My partner thinks it`s odd that I don`t call my mom every single day.  How can I love her and not want to chat every few hours like he does?  When we lived in Zacatecas, where his family lives, a constant barrage of aunts, uncles, and cousins would constantly show up at our door unannounced.  Nobody ever thought to call first.  People were poor and often didn`t have cell phones.  The ones who did have cell phones usually didn`t have saldo, prepaid credit on their phones that would allow them to make outgoing calls.  We could call them, but they couldn`t call us.  That didn`t stop them from trekking way across town to our apartment to get a bite to eat, play games on my partner`s Playstation, and dance karaoke.

 

Maybe they did not call because they were poor but I think it's more cultural. All the people I know that grew up in north Africa act the same, I mean as in a "tribe" you're supposed to be welcome, why would you call.

 

"pour accéder aux plats et aux palabres y a pas de sonnette, à peine une porte, y a des cloisons que les effets du passage rendent obsolètes"

"to accede meetings and dishes there is no bell, barely a door, people passing makes walls obsolete"

 

 

[Earl Grey]

There is a specific type of loneliness for people who repatriate or even just visit their passport country after living away for a while. It's beyond reverse culture shock, and I'll share the loneliness I and many of a lot of my friends have experienced returning to the US/UK/Australia/Etc after living in Cambodia/Philippines/Etc.

 

Let's think of Captain America, for anyone who has seen the movie or reads comics. In the movie, he gets frozen at the height of the Second World War, but his body is preserved in the ice where his plane crashes, and awakens in the modern world (in the movies, he awakens in 2012). This world is not the world he knows: America is not the country he knows anymore, as technology, social norms and values, historical events both major and minor, humor, and maps are no longer the same. It's a big jump 70 years in the future, trying to reconcile how your country has changed into something unrecognizable.

 

Now, technology, even before everyone had tablets, smartphones, and laptops, has made this happen on a more accelerated scale: being away just for a couple years (ask any Peace Corps Volunteer) and your world changes significantly. 

 

A story: I visited America in 2014 after being away for a few years living in Cambodia/Indonesia/East Timor/and a few other countries. The last time I specifically went to San Francisco to see my mother was 2010, while the city was still fairly stagnant and boring as everything was closing up and there was nothing more to do. Fast forward to 2014, and more stores are closing, but a lot of my friends have left because it's too expensive, all these new young people are using language I no longer understand because of Silicon Valley with their accelerators, influencers, and contracting words into indecipherable sentences as a result of 140-character limits for posting their verbal diarrhea infecting their everyday speech when talking to people in person. People are more interested in looking at their phones or trying to be funny with sarcasm but saying the same copied and pasted jokes again and again.

 

Did San Francisco change because of Silicon Valley? Was I a square because I don't know the music or pop culture news and memes that are part of the everyday exposure to everyone else? Was I stupid for not knowing slang or being able to respond with an equally snarky comment to someone who refuses to tell me where the toilet is because he's making fun of me for just asking and confused that I don't know he's referencing some television show I've never heard of that everyone else is watching? The first thought was that no one can go home again, because the locks get changed in your home and someone decides to redecorate it.

 

No. It was I who had changed even more. I became accustomed to speaking slowly for non-native speakers. I had slow Internet that meant I didn't know Netflix was now an Internet streaming service, and I thought it was still the same company mailing DVDs to people who didn't want to go to Blockbuster. I didn't know about how people were using mobile phones to do everything because of apps that allowed them to order people around to buy groceries for them or drive for them, as I was only using mine for phone calls and text messages, and only recently discovered What's App. The humor I had was based off of cultural differences between I as a westerner with Asian heritage living in Asian countries and having difficulty due to so many differences amongst Khmers/Javanese/Timorese/Illongos/ and my norms, biases, and values, but now humor was about pointing fun at people and bragging about how witty you are online. And this was just San Francisco, because when I got to L.A., I had no idea why restaurant servers were more focused on trying to be funny instead of taking my order or asking simple questions about menu items that they said was made from rat poison or calling me a terrible person for ordering some toast without coffee. 

 

You can't step into the same river twice. I left America the first time involuntarily in 1995 and returned in 2002, and then left a second time in 2012 only to return in 2014. As of 2014, I have not spent more than two weeks at a time each year in America and have no desire to as my favorite bookstores and cafes close. My friends have people in their circle who make fun of country stereotypes and all think I lived in Thailand only for prostitutes and the fear and loathing life, without realizing that people actually live there trying to do good social work for NGOs or that there is actually a good expatriate entrepreneurial community there. 

 

For me, the America in my mind was the height of Gen-X in 1995, for the late 1990s are a different era than the early 1990s with the gang violence, Kurt Cobain, the Gulf War, and Super Nintendo. I still can no longer reconcile it with the America I visited in Christmas of 2016, as Millennial and Edger America has different values, different geographical maps, and rode a different wave of experience that defined them and their America. I am a foreigner in my own country not just because I am Asian American, but someone who still can't believe it's the same country that I initially left in 1995. You don't need to be Captain America waking up 70 years in the future--a few years away changes you with the new environment as much as your country changes while you are gone. 

 

In the Third World Countries I lived and live in, I meet more people like me who are displaced expats from different countries who are forever foreigners in their new country, but anachronistic aliens lost in time. I know one man who hadn't been back to America since Carter was in the White House until the early 2000s, and now has no desire to go back as he reads about the greater influence of technology on social psyche. I know another man who left Germany as a teenager and now in his 30s, can't live in his motherland because he speaks English far more comfortably with other expats more than he speaks German with his parents, and can't live in America due to his citizenship even if most of his friends moved there, so he has opened up a business in Manila. 

 

Repatriation is exceptional loneliness, because that sense of community that you get from being with people who have been flung out of their home countries willingly or unwillingly who connect to you at the very least from being just as foreign as you. I have more in common with a Belgian guy who grew up in Portugal and the UK living in Bangkok and has no love for his passport country because Thailand is his home now and all his friends are other denizens who have the same sentiment of no desire to return to unfamiliar places that are supposed to be their homelands. I have no commonality with someone just because he's another American, which is why I don't make an effort to be friendly with all these tourists--I care for the long game with the long-term denizens. 

 

The loneliness of repatriation far exceeds the loneliness of being a foreigner in the Third World, because you can eventually meet people who came to Manila/Dili/Siem Reap/Jakarta like you for whatever reason from whatever country and suddenly share the same disdain for traffic, mosquitoes, visa laws changing every few months, and the joy of sharing the same sardonic suffering. 

 

I do not care about waiting two weeks camped outside of the Apple store for a new toy when I have to queue up for visa renewal much longer sometimes. I may have a hard time asking for directions to the toilet in Bahasa Indonesia and pidgin English, but I find more effort and genuine care from someone in Bandung than I do from some Bay Area hipster who wants to say something snarky that his friends on Twitter and Reddit just dared him to say to the next customer asking where the toilet was so that he could post my reaction to the list different responses to his wittiness (or lack thereof). I don't laugh when someone makes jokes about Kazakhstan because some unfunny British actor introduced them to a country that they may not know actually exists, because I think of my neighbors who were actually from Kazakhstan who owned a Russian restaurant since they left a year before the Soviet Union split and ended up somewhere in Manila. 

 

Certainly how I am characterizing what I saw in America in recent visits is not the totality of America, but my world has become so different and my identity is now of the forever foreigner living in a country that is not mine but I call home for now, while the country I originated from is far more exotic to me. This is the loneliness I know, and for people who know what the term Third Culture Kid is, it gets far more complicated. 

[steve]

22 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Interestingly, I was looking for the antonym to the word "lonely" in English and in Russian the other day, and in neither language it exists. 

 

One word that comes pretty close to an antonym for lonely for me is "supported."

The common thread to loneliness seems to be a lack of support. 

That support can come from a host of sources - self, others, place, object, memory, or even concept.

 

 

[silent thunder]

perhaps, instead of lonely

 

present

[liminal_luke]

9 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

perhaps, instead of lonely

 

present

 

As antonym suggestions go, present is an especially useful one as it suggests a solution, a way of converting lonliness to mere aloneness, taking the emotional sting out.  Is it true that when I`m truly present I can`t be lonely?  I don`t know but what an interesting question. When I`m lonely it`s not always possible to find a group of supportive people to join up with.  But I can cultivate presence.

Edited August 13, 2017 by liminal_luke

[rene]

It seems like this is two threads, escaping rat race and not being lonely - but it might be the same thing.

 

A line in Ch8 of the TTC (F/E) says:

 

In dwelling, be close to the land.

 

For years, I've heard folks take that to literally mean: Get out of the city, go live in the forests, nature...cause thats where the peace is, where tao is.

 

Those who are lonely might feel that if they could only escape the rat race, by moving to a slower place, all would be good. My take is that what is 'missing' in someone can only be found within - and once found it doesn't matter where one dwells.

 

Some folks like noisy city life! Some folks like noisy forest life! The heart-connection can be found anywhere - once you open yourself to it happening.

 

And once open, the tao in your heart goes everywhere you do...and who could be lonely with that!

 

Perpetual imo applied. (-:

Edited August 13, 2017 by WuDao

[Brian]

I've been giving this some thought -- even dreamed on it a bit last night...

 

I don't think I have ever experienced this state called "lonely," even when I was totally alone for days and weeks at a time.  Someone I respect once described me as "internally complete" -- not sure whether that is positive or negative but it seems accurate.

 

This, to me, is a bit like the discovery a while back that I am not really familiar with the "suffering" concept so much of the population seems to experience (and not just the Buddhist understanding of it) and a bit like the discovery that I don't "visualize" the way it seems most people do.

 

 

Hmmm...

[CloudHands]

My mother told me once that my father is self sufficient... wasn't a compliment lol 

[Brian]

3 minutes ago, WuDao said:

It seems like this is two threads, escaping rat race and not being lonely - but it might be the same thing.

 

A line in Ch8 of the TTC (F/E) says:

 

In dwelling, be close to the land.

 

For years, I've heard folks take that to literally mean: Get out of the city, go live in the forests, nature...cause thats where the peace is, where tao is.

 

Those who are lonely might feel that if they could only escape the rat race, by moving to a slower place, all would be good. My take is that what is 'missing' in someone can only be found within - and once found it doesn't matter where one dwells.

 

Some folks like noisy city life! Some folks like noisy forest life! The heart-connection can be found anywhere - once you open yourself to it happening.

 

And once open, the tao in your heart goes everywhere you do...and who could be lonely with that!

 

Perpetual imo applied. (-:

I was typing when you posted, WuDao.

 

I think your words are helpful.

 

I know many people who seem perpetually dissatisfied yet perpetually confident that their own satisfaction is merely a change or two away.

[Brian]

Just now, CloudHands said:

My mother told me once that my father is self sufficient... wasn't a compliment lol 

Yeah, I don't think it was meant to be one in my case, either.  Didn't bother me much, though...

 

 

 

[idquest]

I agree with CloudHands:

 

Lonely is opposite to self-sufficient.

 

Self-sufficient meaning not only in material things but also in emotional and mental state. THere are people who require attention of others - such people are always lonely and can't be satiated by other people's attention. And there are people who can generally fill in their own life on their own. Of course this is spectrum, not black and white phenomenon.

[silent thunder]

posed the antonym of lonely to my gal over breakfast...

 

she sat looking out the window for a few heartbeats and then said...

'content'

 

 

[CloudHands]

Just now, idquest said:

I agree with CloudHands:

 

Lonely is opposite to self-sufficient.

 

Self-sufficient meaning not only in material things but also in emotional and mental state. THere are people who require attention of others - such people are always lonely and can't be satiated by other people's attention. And there are people who can generally fill in their own life on their own. Of course this is spectrum, not black and white phenomenon.

 

No no I did not say that. We are humans, some very social animals so being completely sufficient with yourself is a particularity.

It depends ... is it autistic tendency or spiritual elevation, or an autistic tendency magnified in spirituality ? xD

[Taomeow]

6 hours ago, CloudHands said:

 

In french could be "entouré". Same as being surrounded but meaning feeling surrounded by close benevolent people, a pack, to have an entourage. Could say : I feel well "entouré".

 

 

Ah, thank you.  I have a French friend who is exactly that, entouré, in a way different from "not lonely" of other people I've known.  It is transactional though.  She will often do some of the things I described as the state of "tribal" I used to know and sorely miss, except she will never do them unless there's something in it for her, and will expect things in return and keep the accounting on who did what for whom and who owes her and whom she owes in meticulous order.  Interesting.  Seems like a cultural phenomenon more than an individual trait, but I'm not one hundred percent sure, never lived in France (though I did read tons of French literature...)  

6 hours ago, CloudHands said:

 

 

It's something that also comes with necessity, dig on how/why MS-13 was created ? any gang... actually, gypsy people or my old illegal migrant neighbors from Mongolia were also very communitarian. It comes with propositions you couldn't refuse.

African frontiers that doesn't respect ethnies was one of the tools to prevent their autonomy, they still live that thing.

That's exactly a tribal or ethical thing, it's still very alive as "entraide" is needed. In the country land in china the close/immediate family is not the nuclear (2+1 or 2+2) but is as minimal as your street, weeding, fest, funeral is your street thing.

 

Once the need disappears the manifestation follows. Leaving the rigid world of necessity you enter the embarrassing world of "choices". Actually I'm glad I'm not forced to have friends or "bros", so when I have it I know I have. To stick or not to stick with the family has been challenging enough.

 

Another thing it doesn't help with is back-stab. As an effective remedy against loneliness I'd rather suggest dantian breathing.

 

What you describe is a state of affairs that follows a recent enough destruction of the tribal way of life.  In those parts this aftermath is still crude.  In the West, where it was demolished a lot earlier, it has been refined -- here (or in Japan for that matter) it will manifest as "corporate culture," cliques and gangs of "professionals" whose criminal activities have long been legalized and institutionalized (by gangs specializing in this particular trade, like politicians, lawyers, law enforcement and intelligence communities, etc., to say nothing of exclusive clubs and secret societies.) 

 

I.e. the first thing that happens is, people whose natural (for all humans everywhere at all times) tribal lifestyle has been artificially dismantled instinctively try to replicate it, by forming bands, groups, societies -- but since their natural life is no longer legal, the more determined of them go south of the law, become assorted shades of gangsters because original tribal laws are no longer operational while the new ones is what they defy.  As time goes by, the strongest of these criminal groups usurp power and become the law themselves.  That's our present situation.  Africa, Mongolia, even Russia are on the same path, only various distances behind.  

 

I don't think dantien breathing is the answer.  I think if the mother who gave birth to you (or me, or anyone) had been breathed on with the love and joy of her whole tribe when she carried you, it would come naturally.  It is the answer to something though...  but not to this. 

Edited August 13, 2017 by Taomeow

[cold]

2 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

I think if the mother who gave birth to you (or me, or anyone) had been breathed on with the love and joy of her whole tribe when she carried you, it would come naturally.  It is the answer to something though

 

World peace?

[cheya]

The best I can come up with so far is "embedded" I understand that begs a question: in what? But this is a wonderful thing to ponder...

[Taomeow]

5 hours ago, silent thunder said:

What a potent bone to chew... there is strong medicine in this question for me, what is the opposite of lonely?

Its presence resonates so palpably... I can almost taste it.  It's closely related to a question I've long harbored which is 'why do I continue to support this manifestation and not suicide?  connection is my raw answer, it's why I joined the bums... to cultivate conscious connection.  It's why I smile at strangers and am not stand-offish.  Connection maintains my manifestation.  But that's not it, not all of it and words are such clumsy burdensome beasts in these areas... 

 

 

 

lonely... lonesome and yet not alone, surrounded by all, yet lonely...

disconnected.  separate.  unfastened. untethered.  isolated.  withdrawn.  abandoned.  excluded.

 

 

alone, yet not lonely.  connected, integrated...  interwoven... belonging.

connected, imbued, entwined, integral, inalienable, inseperable, undifferentiatable (that's my word I guess, don't see it listed and is rather chewy, but is entertaining and seems to transmit the idea of inalienability that I am trying to convey), cherished, belonging, associated,

hmm...

inalienable

unified

merged

kinship

 

perhaps kinship

 

There is a sense of tribe that connotes connection and belonging and some element of being cherished or valued.  Yet tribal also connotes a self group and 'others' who are 'not tribe', which seems to shift the lonely from individual to group... so doesn't work.

 

Acknowledged returns again and again in this realm for me...  when folks are reaching out to me... strangers, or friends.  They seem to be not needing even for me to agree with their sentiments when reaching out, but to establish/reinforce a connection through simple acknowledgement of their presence and whatever idea they are sharing, even if no agreement is made, the simple acknowledgement of another seems to be what is sought... to complete the moment.  Resolution of the individual through acknowledged connection.

 

Too many words now, but this... this is stirring deep, potent waters.  Going to go be empty with this for some time.

 

Thanks bums. 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed following your train of thoughts, thank you!

 

And "to complete the moment" -- yes, this is it.  That's the cat's meow of the whole thing.  "Lonely" is a state where there's no one else to "complete the moment" for/with you.  Every moment.  I don't know if it's possible to explain -- probably not, just as universally "loved," famous, fortunate, beautiful, wealthy movie or rock stars committing suicide with some regularity would probably fail to explain what it is whose absence hurts so bad that the pain is incompatible with life --

 

someone who has never in their whole life had this "completed moment" doesn't know that what's missing from his or her experience is its very core, and some hurt from this absence and some are numb to it (mistaking the absence of pain for the absence of the wound) --

 

yes, this is it.  This is the reason for my lifelong inquiry into the nature of Time...  Understanding what a "completed moment" is like is understanding everything.  The "not lonely" state is a prerequisite for omniscience, omnipotence, and completeness, wholeness in space and time and beyond -- but this is only possible via one moment -- every one moment -- and the very existence of a "moment" and of "eternity" alike is a function of "not-loneliness."  No, I didn't make it clearer by trying to explain, I made it less so I think...  doesn't matter though.  Can't be explained if it's not there, can't be missed if it's there.

Edited August 13, 2017 by Taomeow

[Taomeow]

22 minutes ago, cold said:

 

World peace?

 

Yes, that too.    But a very different world, where "world peace" is meaningless because there's no one who knows, remembers, or can imagine, much less start, a "world war."