Refurbished Loner

"If you get rid of the pain before you answer its questions, 

you get rid of the self."    -carl jung

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” ~Blaise Pascal

My hope rose the other day, briefly, about something I can't recall.  

It had been a long time since that happened.  A long, long time.  I was reminded of what 'alive' feels like when you're not faking it, which I am, by the way.  

I'm more gone now than I've ever been gone before.  I'm so gone, I can't find my passage back. 

"Excuse me, who do you call when you've lost yourself?   

Is there a lost, or a found? 

Will you check for me, please, to see if a guy who looks like me, is in there? 

Buzzards

I feel the rumbling excitement, and hear the echo of whispers.  The buzzards can smell me.  They're excited.  Anytime I experience misfortune, or failure, those birds jump at the conclusions they hope for, and ignore the story.  There's a hint of celebration any time they think I'll die.

When my brother last called, he said he learned I'd been "fired" from my sister. He called again when he heard the same thing from my Ex.  

"No," he said, "They didn't want me to check in on you, or your well-being.  
No, they didn't ask if you were alright, either.  
They just wanted me to know you're still a fuck-up, and a loser, I think."

"Ahh, that's sweet," I said.

It's not that I expect my sister, or Ex, to ask me what happened when they hear what they hear, then click to mass forward.  Truth is not their concern.   Nor do I wait for an inquiry about how I am.  They don't care, I got it.  They spread word of my misfortune hoping to prove they were right about me.  They ignore details, and play the Town Crier because in some sick way, it makes them feel better.  

That's the part that bugs me.
I wanted to be the one to tell you how awful I am, and impress you with my failings.
"Oh man, there are sooo many. Can you sleep over?"

Confess

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ~ Aldous Huxley

I've noticed an ebb in almost all my relationships.  Friends. Children.  Acquaintances.  I don't blame any of them.  My past has incidents that allow it.  It still hurts though, when they're wrong.

If I intend to stand, and ask to be seen without apology or judgment, I want to be seen for what I am.  To help determine that, I went to the Wizard, and asked for self-knowledge.  I was given a list of links to websites, and when I logged on I found tests.  Self-knowledge is one Google search away. 

The results surprised me.  They were, for the most part, accurate.  Their content provided insight.  My scores, and character traits are now neatly arranged in a folder titled "ME".  You never know when you'll get lost again.

 The tests are also a kind of 'Equivalency Exam' that allow me to test out of confronting what I'm afraid to acknowledge.  At least they would if that's the kind of guy I was.  I'm not, so I made my list, and  named them.  Buzzards are stupid birds.  They think that exposing what they're afraid of having exposed scares everyone as much as it scares them.  Roadkill chewing morons.  Not all sentient beings are intent upon upholding what's false.

What we admit to, or name in ourselves, doesn't define the complexity, or courage, that held it.  Separate items, those things.

Ten lines to lighten the load, and one to get straight again:

1. I only feel real safety when I'm alone.  
2. I no longer worry about who I may hurt, with what I need to say. 
3. The wonder I've had for the world, and guarded since childhood, is finally giving way to exhaustion, and fading away.  That scares me.
4. I don't remember ever feeling genuinely loved, or cared for, by anyone. 
5. Every person who promised to protect me consciously did their best to destroy me.  Two did it more than others, and both profoundly altered the Human Being I might have become.
6. I've never been joyously happy.  Just complacent.
7. Loneliness has been the hardest thing I've had to learn to live with. 
8. I'm ashamed of what I failed to be, or provide for, my sons.
9. I let too many people off the hook for some pretty hideous stuff, because I was afraid they wouldn't like me if I didn't.  They never liked me anyway.  Just needed something.
10. I have cared way too much about what other people thought of me.
11. I am guilty of enacting upon others, all that was enacted upon me.  I'm sorry.

*Links to Self-Knowledge:

•  The Loner Test (No shades of gray here. Score: 98 of 100)
• Extrovert, Introvert, Ambivert Test (Decisively 'ambivert')
• Emotional IQ Test (scored High)
• Old Soul Test

 Lonercode

Self-Knowledge, Part One: I'm a Loner.

 “Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” 
~ Aristotle

"As a loner, you not only prefer, and actively seek solitude, but it is intrinsic to your very nature.  Just as people are born introverted, extroverted...you too were born with the innate need to be alone.  However, it is possible that your external environment growing up played a big factor in the development of your loner personality...You maintain very few friendships in your lifetime, and prefer self-sufficiency over comradeship.   

You enjoy being alone, and usually try to construct your life in such a way that you won’t have to interact much with other people.  Small talk, and social duties to you are the scourges of existence, and as such, you try your best to be anonymous, and unsociable.  You are rarely an affable or personable person, but this doesn’t really bother you.  As long as you have the freedom to do what you want and pursue what you love, you are content."

This is central to who I am.  It's how I was created, I'm sure.  It's how the events of my life intended to shape me.  I will no longer apologize for how I was made, or feel guilty.  And I won't deny it.  The truth is the part of me with a capacity for removal is the part I love the most.  It's what I'm most proud of about my composition.  What I've met in the heart of my solitude has provided what meaning I've needed to live.  The things that found me there brought more meaning into my life than any person, outside of my sons.

Lonerisms

“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.” ~ Gary Mark Gilmore

Loner behavior is a tough sell, and is seen as a variety of things. It's labeled social awkwardness, or rudeness, or selfishness. It's none of those.

It's labeled a 'mental illness', or categorized as maladaptive behavior by the ordinary, and uninformed observer. You can't understand how anyone chooses to be alone in a culture that promotes community, and conformity, unless you've made the choice yourself. Not all self-worth is provided by the attention, or remarks, from others. Some comes about on its own without a need to be named, or acknowledge.

The lure of empty spaces a Loner is constantly prone to, is never a personal dismissal, or rejection, of anyone. It's a migratory pattern with its own code to follow. If it's active, and using you as the host, choice won't exist as an alternative for you. When it moves, you'll follow.

When a Loner does make a public attempt he's generally met with superficial social pleasantries, and quick exit strategies, prepared by those who feel slighted. In all other social environments, those arranged by private parties, the loner gets ignored, completely.

Loners are popular fodder for rumor mills, gossip columns, and general base meanness. And why shouldn't they be? No one goes off alone like that, so often, unless they're deeply arrogant, or adorned with shallow self-perceptions. 

Or maybe Humans, as a group, have never done well with what causes discomfort, or with what fails to provide understanding. Historically speaking, of course.

Social Self Alone

 Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” ~ Jodi Picoult ‘My Sister’s Keeper’

For many Loners, there is never a consideration of personalities involved, or values held, when empty spaces win over crowded ones. In fact, for the Loner there isn't a choice at all. The draw to the void is the gravitational pull of his make-up, and everything else simply floats in the distance. He couldn't free himself from it's pull if he were Popeye.

In time, the Loner becomes accustomed to being examined, and discussed. He begins to understand that those engaged in the discussion have different experiences of themselves in solitude than he does, and that whatever those experiences are, they are what provide the motivation behind the energy expended to avoid it.  

What the Loner meets in solitude is a self-worth outside the influence of peer pressure, and public opinion. The self worth he discovers is the one native to who he is. He meets uncensored thought, and a more daring imagination. He is beyond the reach of diminishing criticisms. He comes into contact, quite often, with things spiritual, and unexplained. He comes into contact with what's Holy, and discovers the depth of gratitude that accompanies the knowledge that we carry it.

This is what I'm drawn to, and have been since I was a boy.  It's what I was ashamed of for the way it made me different.  It's what taught me love.

Emotional Genius

“… practically all creative people, and certainly most geniuses, have preferred to be alone for long periods, especially when producing their best work.” ~ Raj Persaud, ‘One Hundred Tears of Solitude’

Self-Knowledge Part Two:  Emotional Savant

My Emotional IQ(EQ) qualified me for the girls team.  Evidently, my penis is only ornamental, and for practical purposes.  It's no surprise to learn I'm fluent in the language of feelings.  Where I grew up, equilibrium depended upon one's ability to navigate, interpret, and produce a range of emotions for a pop quiz.   In fact, many psychologists, and sociologists, consider an individual's EQ to be just as important as their IQ. 

My test noted that people with my EQ level display some of the following characteristics:

• Able to identify what you feel, 

and why.

• Aware of how your behavior affects others, and in turn are thoughtful of their emotional needs.
• Able to communicate your feelings in healthy ways.
• Often the level-headed peacemaker.
• Get along with almost everyone.

At the risk of meeting certain disagreement, I feel comfortable making the following observations. The list of traits above accurately reflect my abilities. They also reflect what the people who used, and abused me, were missing.  

Identifying the emotional capacity of one, and the vacancy left in their absence in others, becomes an explanation for the primary dynamic in the dysfunctional within my family. My EQ made me an imperative interpreter to a group sorely lacking a fluency in the language. False love was manufactured as compensation, and since false love was the closest I'd known to the real kind, I accepted. I offered the calibration of frightening feelings, and they paid me in feelings that were false. It was a perfect agreement as long as our family system remained closed, which of course, it didn't.
Thank you Dr. Online Quiz, that was helpful.

Self-knowledge isn't what we know of ourselves, it's what we're willing to admit. The tests we take to determine our strengths, and weaknesses, can't measure them. All they do is name them, and in naming them, acceptance of the role they played within us makes sense.

Unless you're a buzzard.

We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” ~ Hermann Hesse