I was in a wonderful relationship for many years. My partner was loving and affectionate, but eventually that was not enough. With all the love that I was shown it made the times where there was none extremely excruciating. I’ll make an assumption and say this is a pretty common thing in relationships at some point or another. When we are shown an excess of love the contrast of its absence is extreme. I eventually realised why this absence was so deep: I lost my individuality. While the absence of love from another is painful it is unessential to our individuality (something all breakup bloggers will call ‘self-love’). I loved my partner more than myself and more importantly I dismissed my own existence for the existence of another. This love was similar to Diatima’s first rung of her ladder but I neglected to take the next step. It was philosophical suicide; I was using my relationship as a means to ignore the absurdity of my existence. Such suicide leaves the individual weak much like a muscle in atrophy from disuse; incapable of looking into the absurd and understanding that they themselves are the author of their life. This is a serious mental event that either destroys the individual, sending them into a depression or searching for another means of ignorance, or enables them to rally at the core of whom they truly are.
Loneliness is a symptom an atrophying individuality whose persons has become too complacent with looking away. When I refer to ‘Individual’ I am using it to describe the mental aspects of a person: hopes, aspirations, fears, beliefs, values, morality, insecurities, and the biases make that person who they are. Loneliness is an emotion we feel that is us coming to realize that we are the driver in our lives, as the drivers we have no clear direction and cannot see anyone to tell us the way forward. We are all alone but none of us are obligated to be lonely. In life a person may experience many events that cause them to feel loneliness and some will feel none. Those that do not are usually well developed individuals whose time and effort into discovering who they truly are and who they yearn to be keeps them steadfast when facing the absurd.
To develop our individuality is no simple task and the varying advice of bloggers, self-help books, and life coaches really drives this home. We must start somewhere though; we must begin with a healthy dose of introspection and embracing our own subjectivity on ourselves. Peeling our own selves back until we find the core of which we are and that is where we begin our journey. There is a requirement to find this core and from there to find means to feed it. The feeding process will also require adversity as much as ‘self-love’; we must be challenged regardless of the outcome. Our challenges must be from attempting to achieve the goals and ambitions we desire, they must make us dry in the mouth until it is wetted with grit. This will be an extremely tiresome and process but it will fulfill and sustain and individual.
Another important part of growing our individuality is learning to find the pleasure of existence. We are surrounded by wonder and most importantly: life. Life is rife with opportunity to explore whether it is hiking a mountain or making new friends (I know, I know). We must make attempts to unshackle ourselves from our confines and comforts to throw ourselves into the uncomfortable and reaping the pleasures it has to yield. Life must be lived as if we are addicts looking for more, not better.
After all of this maybe one can feel comfortable within themselves enough to gaze into the absurd.
Budget Philosophy 