About Loneliness

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Loneliness itself is a messy and difficult concept. And in the 4th industrial revolution age, in this 21st century, loneliness becomes the epidemic topic for human beings. There are enormous people in the world feel painfully lonely.
孤独本身是一个沉重而又难以回答的概念。很多哲学家们用尽一生的时间去体会并试着解读孤独。我们现在生活在第四次工业革命的时代，孤独反而成了人类的一个史诗性难题，因为我们比以往都感到更加孤独。

We put the intimate romantic love on the special pedestal and undervalue companionship. Our intuition told us that we can only truly get rid of loneliness when we found romantic love. However, Alain de Botton said that it’s only when we value companionship at that level that we can choose a person for their merits instead of simply considering being in a relationship is going to cure us of some loneliness. But the fact is romantic relationship is not the pill of cure. We can be just as lonely in an intimate relationship. And we can be just as happy and fulfilled with a companion with someone that we share those amazing connected moments of life with as we can in an intimate relationship.
我们常常认为爱情是最特别又必要的存在，而其他形式的陪伴都比不上爱情的力量。我们的直觉告诉我们，我们只有找到真爱才能摆脱令人困扰的孤独。这样的场面似乎就是电影电视以及现在的文学作品想要传达的：爱是一切痛苦的解药。但Alain de Botton (英国哲学家）说这种幸福婚姻的概念大概只能回溯到18世纪中期。在此之前的人类社会，婚姻只是为乐繁衍后代而产生的人类行为。18世纪的思想家发明了浪漫主义思想，而我们，也都将这浪漫主义当作人类的最本质，最崇高的追求。但现实是，真爱不一定会让我们感到幸福，也不一定会让我们摆脱孤独。只有当我们选择一个人，看见他/她内心和思想上的闪光点，我们能在这样的陪伴关系中暂时摆脱孤独，而不是盲目地追求那肤浅的亲密关系。在有质量的陪伴关系中，我们能和一些人产生碰撞的瞬间，灵魂相遇的时刻。在我们生命中的这些时刻帮助我们暂时摆脱了孤独的困苦。

If we think we are lonely, then we subjectively are.
当我们认为我们孤单时，那我们真的便孤单了

There is a certain type of loneliness is not feeling being understood, or being accepted. It doesn’t always have to come from a friend or a companion. So to explore the world is not about new and interesting things, it is about the exploration of being understood. The exploration is about we are not alone and there will always have some group of people who think and feel just like us. We explore the world in certain ways for meeting understanding and being accepted. We go to certain events or just search online, reading and watching certain things about what resonates us. Just like recently I read Schopenhauer, I feel less lonely, and I also feel being recognized that someone who’s brain behave just like me, then I can escape from a cerebral starvation.
有一种孤单是不被理解的孤单。这种孤单存在于我们的内心深处，令我们感到有时候即使有爱人和朋友的陪伴，我们依然孤独和寂寞着。所以我们拼命地探索世界，不停下脚步地去追求新鲜和刺激感。这些追求和寻找从本质上来说，只是为了寻找那种被理解和认同的感觉，去探索我们在这个世界上活着并不孤独，去寻找那些和我们一样的大脑，去接触和我们有相同感受的人们。我们探索这个世界是按照我们的意愿在进行，其实并不是随机事件。我们在网络上看到的文章和视频，都是按照我们的意愿在发生，而这个意愿本身是为了消除那让人空洞的寂寞。就像我最近又重读叔本华的哲学，我感到一股暖流淌进我的大脑，我感到了被这个世界认同和接受，因为还有这样的哲学家和我拥有相同的大脑。而我也从思想的贫瘠中被解放了出来。

But also, there is a painful feeling like we don’t belong, it feels like there is a great party in life and in this world going on and I am not invited, and that creates the fear of missing out. This is what cultural influence does. People don’t want to be missed out. But, there is some life going on that we don’t have access to, we looking at the major things happened online and we feel lonely because we know we are not going to have that kind of life. This is a suffering of mercy from this highly developed world. But, most of us overvalue the party and what is going on outside of us. Just like we overvalue the benefits of an intimate relationship, or overvalue something that we can only see through from superficial facts. However, we can also go to any situation in our life, because our life is just like others. When we look at others, others are looking at us. The only thing we can do about this is to change the way we thought. We can wake up and saying that “where’s the party?”. Or, we can also wake up and saying that: “I am the party.”
还有一种孤独是不属于哪里。就像这个世界上所有人都参加了一场盛大的派对，而唯独只有我们没有拿到邀请卡。这种孤独来自于被剩下的恐惧。社会主流文化带给我们的也就是这种被剩下的恐惧。好像每一个女生都应该像小红书里面的网红那样精致，每一个男生都应该像电视里的那样成功，每一个人都应该热爱旅游，每一个人都应该有一个宠物。女生都应该去做瑜伽，男生都应该去练体育。当我们翻开instagram或Facebook，我们情不自禁地去羡慕那些在沙滩上晒太阳，在派对上狂欢，在雪山顶爬山的人们，还有相爱着热情拥吻的人们，那样的生活是我们所不能企及的，我们好像感到全世界只有我们被剩下了。但，生命本身就是一场苦难，一场带着怜悯的苦难。我们大部分人都期望着别人能给我们带来快乐，而从没想过自己才能让自己快乐。叔本华说，自己让自己快乐是一件很难的事，但要别人让自己快乐那就是不可能。我们太过于低估了自己，而又太高估了那些虚浮的幻境。摆脱这样的孤独，我们能够做的唯一一件事，就是换个角度来看世界。比如明天早上醒来，与其问：“派对在哪里？”，不如对自己说：“我在哪里派对就在哪里。”

We are so easy to overvalue someone else’s influence in our life. Such as this party is going to be great because someone is coming…..We completely overvalue what others bring to the table and we undervalue what we can bring to the table if we took our personal responsibility for having a good time. But it is hard, it starts with personal responsibility and an understanding that we’re enough on our own. We don’t need someone else to be the party, that we are enough on our own and our actions matter. Somehow, loneliness is synonymous with worthlessness.
我们总是高估了他人对我们生命中留下的痕迹。但要让自己快乐真的很难，因为首先，我们要成为一个独立的人，拥有完整的人格和信念，足够了解自己，能够为自己的情绪负责。我们其实根本不需要去那些其他人的派对，我们只需要自己便已足够。在这个层面上，孤独是价值感诞生的起点。

OUR ACTIONS MATTER! And that could change someone’s day. The most modest things that you do that you believe you have no lasting impact on the world can fundamentally impact on someone else, and it will go on to affect all impact to all sorts of other people that you even couldn’t imagine your actions would have an effect on.
因为孤独，我们的行为便尤为重要。因为孤独，我们的思想可能会改变一个人一时的情绪，可能会改变一些人一生的想法。因为我们在孤独中思考，在思考中前行，在前行时影响了他人。我们有时候并没有觉得自己做了什么了不起的事，但有可能因为一场对话，一个对思想领域的探索，便改变了很多人对孤独的看法。

We practice forgetting and losing connection every single day. Our strives are the mercy of suffering, and such suffering has neither points and ends. But our action and thoughts matter. We do belong, not the grand party that we look from a far distance, but our own party. The life journey is a process of finding a sense of worthiness that no one can take away.
每时每刻，我们都在遭受遗忘和被遗忘的痛苦，我们都在为过去生命中出现的人和事儿感到伤怀。我们感到孤独，感到不被理解，感到被剩下，感觉遗憾与失落，为失去的和逝去的默哀。但生命是一场痛苦的旅行，在这样孤独的痛苦中，我们找到了自己的价值。