Lonely

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, lonely means:

being without company; cut off from others; SOLITARY; not frequented by human beings; DESOLATE; sad from being alone; LONESOME; producing a feeling of bleakness or desolation

I'm not without company. I'm not cut off from others. I'm rarely alone. I am not sad to be alone, when I am alone. I'm not desolate, nor do I feel bleakness or desolation. Yet loneliness is the word that comes to mind when I try to express the feeling that has permeated my life, throughout the span of my life.

Most times it is a hum like the sound of tires moving at 75 mph on the interstate. Ever present, but in the background, allowing sounds of music, conversation and life to stand in the foreground. At other times it is a deafening cacophony that makes me feel like I am in a deep well aware of my own breathing and heart beat, my own thoughts. The sound of it echoes so loudly that I feel the vibration of it in my bones. Each cell of my body vibrates to the wail of this deep ache.

When I was younger I acted upon this feeling without understanding that it was even there. I ran. I was always going, going, going. Doing something, talking, listening, working, engaging people in any way I could. I was driven to keep on the move. I thought I didn't feel much of anything. If it wasn't trauma, I didn't feel it. I felt, or thought, that I was numb.

As I've aged I've slowed down and have stopped running and pushing. And as I slowed down I began to identify that I was feeling something. Sometimes powerful, sometimes subtle and whiny, but always there. Just there. It's just there all the time.

Is this a feeling common to all humans? Is it the sound of living in a body that separates my mind from other minds? Is this part of the human condition that philosophers have mused about for millennia?

It doesn't matter what the answer is. It doesn't matter because regardless of what the answer is, it will still be there. Sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming -- it will be there. It always has been.

Addendum: My friend, Christi, sent me this url after reading this blog: An Existential View Of Loneliness.