Aloneness, That Not So Popular Topic

I have gone from no TV to TV as background noise. Not sure how much improvement that represents. In fact, I think I'll go turn it off. There. That's much better. All the yelling can wait. All the comedians of the nightly news will be there whenever I want to revisit them. Meanwhile, I would rather talk about something serious. And that something is Aloneness. Aloneness. I didn't even know that was a word. It is a word. Defined by Merriam-Webster as "the state of being alone or kept apart from others." If you look it up online you will find 20 "synonyms and familiar words" and 6 antonyms. Aloneness may be positive or negative. Solitude, separateness and privacy are probably my preferred and decidedly positive synonyms. Isolation and loneliness are listed as synonyms, yet land on the negative side of the spectrum, while the other three are more positive. Human beings will vary individually, by temperament and depending on different circumstances. Antonyms and near antonyms of aloneness are society, fellowship, companionship, camaraderie, company and comradeship. That is all six of them. These, as you can see, are all positive terms, and they all describe desirable states of being. (I can see this as a good discussion for a support group meeting or even a classroom discussion in the upper grades of elementary school.) I feel almost as though I'm treading on unexplored territory here. So I'm just going to stick my proverbial neck out and say this: Aloneness is the human condition, and we spend our entire existence learning how to navigate that condition. A person is born alone and dies alone. One could certainly argue that a baby isn't alone when it's born and, thankfully, many people are surrounded by loved ones when they are dying, but those factors aside, the human psyche is largely functioning in aloneness--again, this could swing like a pendulum at any given time from negative to positive and vice-versa, depending on other variables. I don't mean to sound scientific or academic here. I do tend to drift in that direction from time to time, analytic, you might say, but based on my observation and experience, all humans are engaged in either thinking, meditating, or praying, nearly 24/7, and although human beings are not always in the company of others, they, at least, are almost always thinking, and when they are with others they are almost always thinking out loud, that is, talking--as well as communicating or relating by other forms of behavior. I do not wish to speak of scientific numbers here, percentages or data, although it might be an interesting topic to pursue, but just speaking from a personal perspective, (and I'm not saying anything you haven't heard somewhere else), most scientists and experts in human behavior would agree that aloneness and company need to be balanced in a healthy person's life. Too much of one or the other could be detrimental. From a Christian perspective, it seems that God made human beings for relationship, primarily with himself and then with others. The first commandment says "You shall have no other gods and you shall love the Lord, thy God, with all your heart, soul and mind." And Jesus said, "and your neighbor as yourself." And from my Episcopal roots, I hear the resounding, "And on these, hang all the law and the prophets." I love the simplicity here. Many terrible things happen to people who isolate and turn inward, and most good things come to people who learn how to live in aloneness or in the company of others and find contentment and peace in both. There is a lot more to be explored under this heading, but that is all I have time for tonight.