On Loneliness

The truth is, for the rest of your life, you are going to be running from something. It will only ever be a few steps behind, and you will feel its breath and know its teeth are snapping at your heels every day, everywhere you go. It is called loneliness. Once it has your scent, it will never give up its pursuit of you. And eventually, when you are too tired to keep running, it will take you.

Loneliness really has little to do with how many people surround you, or how many friends you have, or who you know. It runs deeper, and it speaks to the isolation of the human experience. I’ve always believed that loneliness is about something far more primal. It’s the kind of thing that you feel when you’re acutely aware of the vastness of the universe, and the smallness of everything you know.

Loneliness appears when you think about what your life means, and where it’s been, and where it’s going to, and you understand that ultimately it will all unfold alone in your own mind and heart and soul.

Once you become aware of it, you start to experience the beautiful parts of life in a different way. With a touch more sadness, with a little more profoundness, and with a more intimate and personal meaning that would feel almost pornographic, were it to be shared with anyone else.

And I think there’s empathy, too. When you know and understand that loneliness is a universal human state, it can make you feel for the people around you, more deeply, more gently. In your moments of empathy, there is a chance that you are able to transcend the boundaries of your own flesh and blood and bills and anxiety and half finished breakfast burritos, and touch what it means to be human. It’s overwhelming, but it’s comforting all the same.

xox Joany 🍕🍕