- AN APPROACH
- THEORY
- LONELINESS
- LONELY PROBLEM
- LONELY EXPERIENCE
- HUMAN LIFE WORLD
- PHENOMENON
Phenomenological and existential approaches to the study of the problem of loneliness, formulated in the works of Western researchers, as well as the experience of Russian national philosophy in understanding this problem are considered. It is concluded that the problem of loneliness is ambiguous, but if it is considered globally, then it is necessary to fight it, try to overcome it.
- Differential anthropological aspect of loneliness
And God stepped into the void. And He looked around and said - I'm lonely. I will create my own world
Johnson JW
I wrote my work based on the scientific article by E.A. Yudich “The problem of loneliness in the context of philosophy” from the journal “News of the Tomsk Polytechnic University”.
We spend most of our lives in the environment. Everyone needs to share their experiences, interesting events, etc. with someone. The question arises: why can a person feel lonely among a large number of people?
Who is this lonely person? This is a man who is alone. Maybe talking to a lot of people every day, he will still feel lonely.
This is what it consists the main problem which no one has ever been able to fully understand. We waste our energy searching for people with whom we would be comfortable and comfortable, we want to be understood, we strive to be surrounded, and therefore we constantly strive, albeit on a subconscious level, not to be alone. Not always a large number of environment is an indicator that a person is not alone. Sooner or later, he will begin to realize this and everything will begin in the second circle. The environment will begin to change, more and more new faces, but is it all worth the effort spent. Of course, it is a great happiness to find such a person. On the other hand, maybe you just need to improve yourself, try to be interesting person, develop and then people will reach out to you, want to be with you and accept you with all your advantages and disadvantages. Or maybe the person who will be a kindred spirit will settle down and meet, and then you won’t need to spend so much energy on useless communication. In any case, the problem remains unresolved.
In modern society, the problem of loneliness is very relevant. There are a lot of changes that radically change people's lives, namely: grandiose achievements in the field of science and technology, nanotechnologies, the emergence of information society. But often all these changes do not always have a positive effect on individual person. Many people find it very difficult to adapt to a new environment. The individual must feel a sense of belonging to society, and losing this, he becomes lonely. The worst thing is that people become lonely among people. All this can lead to health problems, nervous breakdowns, depression. In this situation, a person resorts to various forms, in order not to remain lonely: various groups, religious sects.
The article by E.A. Yudich considers different points perspective on loneliness.
The phenomenological approach suggests that loneliness has a detrimental effect, even if it does not destroy the entire system, but still brings its own discord into it.
Existentialists associate the development of a person's life world with the development and formation of a conscious attitude towards one's own loneliness: understanding of loneliness determines the nature of relationships with the outside world.
Not loneliness, but flight from loneliness makes a person unhappy, unsatisfied, weak, doubting. Thus, there is a commonality in the phenomenological and existential approaches: the problem of loneliness is connected with the problem of awareness.
In Russian philosophy, the phenomenon of loneliness is studied on the basis of pure thinking, on an attempt to cover this phenomenon with thought. For example, Lossky describes, first of all, a general picture of the world, which includes and explains all phenomena and processes, including the phenomenon of loneliness; then the goal of the researcher is not to “invent” a new theory of loneliness, a new understanding of the problem of loneliness, but to reveal the very essence of the phenomenon. concepts of personality and society).
I believe that the article by E.A. Yudich shows the problem of loneliness very well, but no attempts are made to solve this problem and it does not say whether it is worth being afraid of loneliness at all, maybe it’s not always so bad, maybe there is and positive. I think there is. Loneliness gives you time to think about many things, put your thoughts in order. We need loneliness, because the consciousness that you are alone and no one understands you gives the necessary surge of emotions. After that, interest in something will surely follow. The main thing is to catch it in time. Solitude helps us focus on what matters most. The main thing is to learn how to use it correctly. But there is also a negative: psychological disorders, nervous breakdowns, deterioration in both physical and spiritual state person. However, people live in society and interact with it anyway, so loneliness is becoming a global problem. We need to fight loneliness, if we consider it in a broad sense, because. it has a very negative impact on the condition of people and society as a whole. There is no universal solution to the problem, it all depends on the cause. But in any case, every person should try to fight loneliness, help people adapt, interact with each other, deal with emotional stress, psychological trauma.
The problem of loneliness is ambiguous. For some it's good, for some it's bad. After all, only in loneliness does a person take off all the masks in which he stays during contact with society. In loneliness, everything freezes, everything insignificant fades into the background and come to the fore true desires and motives. It is true, and not which are imposed by society and its social norms. I believe that if we consider loneliness in global terms, it has more negative consequences than positive ones. Loneliness must be fought if it becomes a permanent and normal way of life. Need to borrow active position, be an interesting person, constantly improve yourself, and then such a problem as loneliness will begin to disappear.
Bibliography
- Puzanova Zh.V. Philosophy of loneliness and loneliness of the philosopher // Bulletin of RUDN University. Ser. Sociology. - 2003. - No. 4-5. -WITH. 47-58.
- Burke M. Loneliness kills // Forbes Russia - a news site about business, finance, career and lifestyle. 2009. URL: http://www.forbesrussia.ru/mneniya/idei/22679-odinochestvo-ubi-vaet (date of access: 02/14/2010).
- Sadler W., Johnson T. From loneliness to anomie. Labyrinths of Solitude: Per. from English. / Comp., total. ed. and foreword. NOT. Pokrovsky. - M.: Progress, 1989. - 624 p.
- Buber M. Two images of faith: Per. with him. - M.: Respublika, 1995.- 464 p.
- Lossky N.O. History of Russian Philosophy. - M.: Progress, 1994. - 460 p.
- Berdyaev N.A. Spirit and reality. - M.: Izd-vo AST, 2007. -381 p.
- Karsavin L.P. The Path of Orthodoxy. - M.: Izd-vo AST, 2003. -557 p.
It is known that the problem of loneliness existed at all times. The degree of relevance of this problem has always depended on specific historical conditions However, research interest in the topic of loneliness has never faded, which is why the problem of loneliness has not only individual psychological, social and philosophical, but also historical roots.
At present, according to various scientific research, loneliness is becoming a truly global, universal problem affecting the most diverse segments of the population of both developed and developing countries. Another interesting fact is that the problem of loneliness does not lie on the surface and that the symptoms of this problem are countless, variable, interconnected with many other personal and social contradictions. It is safe to assume that loneliness as such is the root cause of a number of social problems and disasters. Behind immoral, asocial or deviant behavior is often hidden the unresolved problem of loneliness, prompting a person or a group of people to act unconsciously, impulsively and not always adequately.
In addition, according to the latest medical research, the problem of loneliness affects not only the psycho-emotional state, but also the physical health of a person, namely: it provokes the development of serious diseases, the spread of which is now taking on a mass character.
Modern look life, characterized low level awareness and the ever-increasing dynamics of social modifications, allows the problem of loneliness to remain in the shadows, while exposing those aspects of this problem that are perceived and studied not as components of one system, but as independent, unrelated phenomena that have different sources and causes occurrence.
The problem of loneliness is closely related to another problem - the problem of happiness and well-being, if we understand by “happiness” and “well-being” not only the satisfaction of an individual person with the quality of his life (health, relationships, security, financial stability, opportunities for comprehensive development), but also the well-being of society as a whole ( high level economic development, social security and security, equal access to benefits, etc.).
Thus, the problem of loneliness is not a problem of one person or a group of the population, alienated for some reason from social benefits or opportunities, but a problem of everything. modern society generally. Globalization has captured not only the economic and cultural space, she made one and social space, which means it combined social problems.
A lot of literature is devoted to the problem of loneliness, mainly psychological and sociological literature of Western origin (Europe, North America), as well as fiction, in which the phenomenon of loneliness is described and analyzed, as a rule, in close connection with a number of other philosophical problems.
The existing socio-philosophical approaches and directions that explain the essence of the problem of loneliness are not sufficiently developed. These approaches lack a philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of loneliness. Among the most developed and systematized approaches, the phenomenological and existential approaches deserve special attention in the first place.
Within the framework of the phenomenological approach to the study of the problem of loneliness, the human life world is considered as an open dynamic system that not only communicates with phenomena that are outside the system itself, but also builds a relatively strong chain of interaction of the subjective features of this particular system (these features are determined by the nature of reactions to external environment). In other words, the life world of a person is individual, complex, unified, and at the same time not static, which is predetermined by constant interaction with external objects (literally, by the invasion of these objects), the constant development of the social whole and its constituent elements, as well as by the very nature of man.
From the point of view of phenomenology, loneliness introduces a qualitative discord into the system of the human life world: loneliness does not destroy the system itself, but it has a significant impact on the functioning of the system, on the nature and orderliness of subjective experiences. The life world of a person experiencing loneliness becomes more subjective, narrower in social terms and, as a result, less dynamic, less operational. Loneliness as an experience becomes loneliness as self-consciousness. What starts this process? Within the framework of the phenomenological approach, several aspects of the human life world that are “vulnerable” from the point of view of the problem of loneliness are studied.
The following main aspects can be distinguished: uniqueness life path each person (this aspect is closely related to self-actualization and the concept of "happiness of creativity"), the cultural space of the individual, the external environment (social environment, the social field of human activity), the immediate social environment (this aspect is intertwined with the concepts of "friendship", "love", "partnership", "happiness of human relations"). Invading the life world of a person, loneliness turns into stress. This stress is characterized by the collapse of the deep expectations of the individual regarding the implementation of one or another aspect. Like expectations, experiences of stress are also individual. If these experiences continue for a long time, are not resolved and not transformed, then they take the form of a habit, become an unconscious, but real background of all human life. On the other hand, loneliness, as a direct result of serious failures in one or more areas of a person's life world, becomes a kind of "strength test", since loneliness as such does not lead to degradation or death.
Within the framework of the phenomenological approach, loneliness is considered as a complex phenomenon, the origins of which are both inside and outside the system. Reactions to loneliness (a conscious choice of reactions), the nature of experiencing loneliness (a conscious character) are new opportunities for the development of a person’s life world, new challenges, new clashes between the external and internal, the results of which cannot be determined solely within the “bad” - “good” scale. This view of the problem of loneliness expands the semantic boundaries of the very term "loneliness"; loneliness ceases to be understood as a personal phenomenon, loneliness is both a form of self-consciousness and a transpersonal process.
In this regard, four facets of loneliness are distinguished in phenomenology: cosmic, cultural, social and interpersonal (intimate). It is appropriate to talk about the cosmic edge of loneliness when we are dealing with stressful experiences caused by the impossibility or loss of a person’s internal and external connections with nature, with God, with the secrets of the universe (the awareness of such connections, their nature, as well as the degree of their manifestation and depth are determined subjective features of the life world of the individual). The cultural edge of loneliness is characterized by an imaginary or real rupture of cultural ties, the presence of which gave a person a sense of security, certainty and stability. The social edge of loneliness applies to certain social groups experiencing social exclusion due to political, economic or other reasons. The interpersonal line is defined by the quantity and quality of close emotional connections, the absence of which is usually considered the most common and most painful form of loneliness.
As a rule, the experience of loneliness is multifaceted and affects several aspects of a person’s life at once: the stress experienced at the same time does not always clearly indicate the presence of a problem of loneliness, and therefore a person, fighting stress, fights with the consequences, and not with the cause of the problem, and, therefore, does not look for a solution, but only creates the illusion of finding a solution. The problem of loneliness thus points to another problem. modern man- on the lack of awareness, a conscious attitude to life.
Within the framework of the existential approach, the causes of loneliness are not studied, nor are the factors contributing to the development and strengthening of the feeling of loneliness. According to this approach, the experience of loneliness is a life experience as such, it is life itself, it is an initially given condition. human being, which can neither be canceled nor refuted, but which can (and should) be used productively and creatively. Paradoxically, existentialists are not characterized by decadent views and moods; on the contrary, in their understanding of loneliness, they proceed from the fact that loneliness, accompanied by various negative experiences, encourages a person to creative work, To creative attitude to reality in general and to the social environment in particular. In other words, predestination human loneliness does not deprive a person of the opportunity to be happy and satisfied. In addition, such an understanding of loneliness affirms the inherent value of a person, the significance of self-consciousness, the significance of a person in their own eyes.
The interpretation of the concept of “loneliness” proposed within the framework of the existential approach intersects with the emotional and semantic meanings of the concepts of “freedom”, “human spirit”, “personality”: the assertion of the insurmountability of human loneliness becomes only an external form, behind which lies a deep penetration into the essence of the phenomenon; and if the phenomenological approach defines the content of the concept of “loneliness” by analyzing the factors that predetermine the experience of loneliness (that is, loneliness is considered as a “side” state), then within the framework of the existential approach, loneliness acts as a given characteristic of existence, and not as a stage of development or some state in a certain period of life.
Existentialists associate the development of a person's life world with the development and formation of a conscious attitude towards one's own loneliness: understanding of loneliness determines the nature of relationships with the outside world. Man simultaneously separates himself both from nature and from other people. Acceptance of this isolation provides a person with the opportunity to search creative solutions in order to establish full-fledged contacts with surrounding subjects (loneliness and isolation do not exclude the possibility of such contacts). Consciously establishing contacts, a person learns the world and his role in this world. Those who cannot or refuse to accept total isolation seek refuge in the illusion that loneliness is the result of individual choice or that loneliness does not exist. In the first case, a person hides in his own ideas about loneliness (individualism), in the second - he becomes depersonalized, becoming an element social education(collectivism). In both cases, the fear of being alone remains unconquered; in fact, escaping in illusions, a person loses his true "I" and plunges even more into loneliness.
Not loneliness, but an escape from loneliness makes a person unhappy, dissatisfied, weak, doubting. In this, the existential approach has something in common with the phenomenological one, namely: the problem of loneliness is closely connected with the problem of awareness.
The conscious acceptance of loneliness leads to the fact that a person begins to think about establishing contact with another "I" - such a contact that would allow him to comprehend the loneliness of another, and having comprehended the loneliness of another, to comprehend (literally fill) his own. It should be noted that in the framework of the existential approach to the study of the problem of loneliness the greatest interest it does not even cause loneliness itself, but the possibility of overcoming loneliness by establishing contact between two "I" (the sphere "between", as defined by M. Buber): it is not the total nature of loneliness that is surprising, but the fact that people, being lonely, can understand feelings and experiences of each other. Personal "I" requires a complete rapprochement with another "I". Such rapprochement is impossible in either individualism or collectivism, since both are two extremes that can be compared with a dream, when the true "I" does not realize that it is sleeping, and identifies itself with what it really is not. . The rapprochement of two "I" is possible only if two personalities approach - two people who are aware and accept their loneliness.
A certain value in studying the problem of loneliness is the cognitive approach, the scientific and practical developments of which largely echo the achievements and discoveries of representatives of the interactionist approach. In particular, the theoretical substantiation of the problem of loneliness in the framework of both approaches is based on the analysis of empirical data and experimental results.
According to the cognitive approach, loneliness is the experience of a negative emotional experience, comprehended and evaluated by a person as such; in other words, loneliness is experienced and determined by the person himself as a result of a long cognitive process that analyzes a whole range of emotions, patterns of behavior and thinking. Loneliness is felt and understood in a broad sense as well-being, influenced by external and internal factors. The emergence and exacerbation of loneliness is influenced to a greater extent by subjective assessments, subjective systems of standards that are formed at the junction of deep personal preferences or attitudes and existing social expectations. The subjectivity of assessment leads to the fact that the definition of loneliness changes over time, which means that it is possible to influence a person who considers himself lonely with the help of persuasion. However, the experience of loneliness is not an exclusively subjective experience, the existence of which is determined by certain social and psychological factors.
Western theories are based, as a rule, on empirical material and describe certain aspects of loneliness, which is why only the totality of these theories, complementing each other and opening up new dimensions of loneliness in opposition and contradiction to each other, gives the most complete picture of the phenomenon of loneliness.
Modern Russian scientific literature devoted to the problem of loneliness mainly offers an analysis and classification of Western theories, traditions, accumulated materials and experience, and also makes attempts to selectively transfer Western developments to Russian soil and comprehend the possible results of such a transfer.
However, in Russian literature, first of all, in the works of the classics of national philosophy, there are their own unique views on the problem of loneliness, which not only illuminate fundamentally different aspects of loneliness, unlike Western theories, but also represent promising areas for further research and research, for further development, that are not tied to a specific historical context and therefore can be transferred both to modern Russian reality and to the realities of Western society.
In Russian national philosophy, the phenomenon of loneliness is studied not so much on the basis of observations, on the basis of replenishing empirical material, but on the basis of pure thinking, on an attempt to embrace this phenomenon with thought. In other words, Russian philosophers describe, first of all, a general picture of the world, which includes and explains all phenomena and processes, including the phenomenon of loneliness; then the goal of the researcher is not to "invent" a new theory of loneliness, a new understanding of the problem of loneliness, but to reveal the very essence of the phenomenon. (Perhaps for this reason, the problem of loneliness has always been considered in connection with other philosophical problems, not separately). In addition, Russian philosophers, unlike their Western colleagues, subject the third component of the phenomenon of loneliness, the Divine principle, to a more complete, more thorough analysis (the first two components include the concepts of personality and society). This third component is no less important in understanding the essence of loneliness than the first two.
Within the framework of Russian national philosophy, a stable idea has developed about loneliness as one of the phenomena of interaction in the "God-man" system: loneliness is neither a consequence of the influence of external factors, nor a given parameter of human existence, - loneliness is a state that is formed as a result of unconscious or intentionally breaking the connection of the human "I" with God. The initiator of such a gap is always a person.
As S.N. Bulgakov, each human "I" receives from God an individual, unique plan of life. Having freedom of choice (freedom of refusal), a person either accepts, partially or completely, or rejects this plan. Following the plan is impossible without unity with God, at the same time, unity with God excludes the possibility of loneliness, since God is love, and love is a free manifestation of the spirit.
According to N.A. Berdyaev, a person who isolates himself from God is deprived of direct experience of spiritual life and inevitably faces a painful experience of loneliness, the causes of which he mistakenly sees in himself, other people or the world around him. Loneliness is predetermined by human imperfection, but the actual experience of loneliness is not determined human nature, such experience is due to the choice made by the person.
In turn, L.P. Karsavin develops the idea that loneliness manifests itself in the absence of the unity of the human "I" and God. The degree of this unity, as well as its absence, is determined by the person himself, who was initially given such an opportunity. Essentially, the experience of human life is the experience of reuniting the human self with God. Reunification through knowledge, through mental work is not complete; in such a reunion, separation prevails, resulting in an experience of loneliness. Getting rid of loneliness and inner suffering should be sought not in resistance and not in struggle, but in finding identity, in the deification of the human "I" - in other words, in the active process of uniting the personality with the Divine principle.
The works of Russian philosophers are combined common idea, general mood, they harmoniously complement each other and do not have fundamental, significant contradictions, while Western theories are built on a mutually exclusive basis, which is why they are considered in comparison and opposition.
At the same time, both Western and Russian philosophical traditions regarding the study of the phenomenon of loneliness have common cultural and historical roots, in particular in Christian worldview, namely in biblical picture world, the constantly changing interpretation of which accompanied (and accompanies) the stages historical development mankind for the last few centuries.
Not religious, but philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of loneliness through the analysis of biblical texts seems to be very promising within the framework of the hermeneutic research method. In this regard, the analysis of biblical narratives and writings, indirectly or directly related to the problem of loneliness in its individual-personal, concrete-historical and universal scales, can be of particular importance. Such an analysis is significant both in itself (as one of the most developed interpretations of the phenomenon of loneliness and as an explanation of its essence), and in comparison with existing socio-philosophical theories and approaches to the study of the problem of loneliness, since most of these theories and approaches in one way or another to a different extent, they rely on the religious experience of human history and operate with concepts of religious and philosophical content, in particular, concepts related to the Christian worldview.
Thus, the story of original sin also touches on the problem of loneliness. Having tasted the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve disobeyed the Creator, as a result of which they were expelled from paradise. The Fall separated the existence of man from God, but it is not even the fact of separation (exile) that is important, but the fact that the separation was preceded by the acquisition of consciousness by a person - the ability to know oneself, objects and phenomena in their duality (good and evil), to separate and evaluate them in the process cognitive activity, thus making moral choice(knowledge of good and evil). In other words, a person has learned to separate the whole, has learned to perceive the world as divided, composed of elements and at the same time integral, endowed with meaning. Loneliness as one of the realities of the new life - life outside of paradise - is associated not only with the actual separation of man from God, but also with the loss of identity, unity, that is, with the separation within the person himself. Overcoming this separation, and therefore overcoming loneliness, lies on the path of returning to God, on the path of rejecting separation, on the path of seeking and gaining unity with the Divine. The impossibility of such unity through only cognitive activity (through human efforts) is considered in the works of Russian philosophers, who relied in their research on complex analysis biblical stories and texts.
It is worth noting that a deep interest in the problem of loneliness is common feature almost all famous religions and religious beliefs. Interest in this problem is associated with the cognitive activity of a person who seeks to explain the structure of his inner world and the structure of the external world, the complexity and diversity of which lead to reflections on the possibility of the existence of some other reality, fraught with an explanation, source, root cause of all phenomena surrounding reality. It is the cognitive process that initiates the isolation of the concept of loneliness from overall picture peace. IN religious outlook, perception of the world, the phenomenon of loneliness does not arise within human existence, but at the junction of human existence and divine existence.
As a result, we can conclude that representatives of the Russian national philosophy understand loneliness to a greater extent as an existential experience of a person than an emotional one, and the source of such experience is the ability of a person to make a choice in accordance with his knowledge about himself, society, the world and God.
Philosophy of loneliness
Thank you for downloading the book from the free e-library http://filosoff.org/ Happy reading! Philosophy of loneliness. Experience of getting used to the problem Loneliness, female and male Dedicated to Lana Sweet, who penetrated deeper than anyone into my loneliness. From the author Loneliness is almost always perceived by us as a tragedy. And we run down from its peak, unable to endure communication with our own Self. But the flight from loneliness is the flight from oneself. For only in solitude can we understand our existence as something necessary for loved ones and deserving of indifference and fellowship. Only after passing the gates of loneliness, a person becomes a person who can interest the world. Only in this way does a woman acquire the dignity of a woman, and a man - the dignity of a man. For loneliness is the axis penetrating our lives. Childhood, youth, maturity and old age revolve around it. As a matter of fact, human life there is an endless destruction of loneliness and a deepening into it ... Loneliness is insight. In its ruthless light, the routine fades and all the most important things in life come through. Loneliness stops time and exposes us. Escape from loneliness is an escape into loneliness - that same loneliness in the crowd, at work, alone with his wife and children. Escape from loneliness is an approach to the cosmic loneliness of old age. How to avoid this loneliness? This question can only be answered through the emergence of a new deeper question: “What is the meaning of loneliness?” The answer to it can only be the philosophy of loneliness. The tragedy and intimately personal nature of the problem lead to the fact that the creation of such a philosophy in the language of theory is almost impossible - it must be written in the language of being. This determined the figurative-symbolic, sometimes even mythological way of presentation. The thinking of loneliness always opens the abyss before us. Alone we meet God or the devil, find ourselves or fall on our faces. Therefore, the theme of loneliness, like the theme of death, is forbidden for our consciousness. I want to break the taboo and lift the veil. And start with the most obvious - the loneliness of women and men. September 29, 1994. Part 1 SHADOW OF THE MORNING Shadow of my strange youth, Salute frozen pink flowers... Valery Yulsky And I was all alone, and everything seemed to me that mysteriously majestic nature, attracting the bright circle of the moon, stopping for some reason at one high indefinite place in the pale blue sky and standing together everywhere and as if filling everything immensity space, and I, an insignificant worm, already defiled by all the petty, poor human passions, but with all the immense mighty power of imagination and love - it all seemed to me at these moments that it was as if nature, and the moon, and I, we were one and Same. Leo Tolstoy "Youth" Chapter 1 Female and male loneliness: Youth is a time of awareness and mastery of loneliness. Almost everyone goes through the experience of loneliness in their youth. Loneliness is the gateway from adolescence asexual existence into the life of a boy and a girl. Thanks to loneliness in youth, there is an awareness of gender and growing into it. Before the girl and the boy their uniqueness as women and men appears, and they try to enter into it. This is an attempt to find the style of a woman and a man. 2 Loneliness in youth is a desire for solitude, so incomprehensible to the previous adolescence. Solitude allows you to prepare for future feelings of infatuation and love, which can only be perceived alone with yourself. 3 He who has not experienced loneliness in his youth does not become an adult. Or even deeper: he never becomes young. He remains an eternal teenager and carries himself like an aging teenager through all the steps of life. He is overwhelmed by the adolescent thirst for collectivity, and this thirst becomes the most strong feeling his life, preventing love and creativity from manifesting. For love and creativity are always a challenge to the team and family. Loneliness is the secret of youth. A tragic sense of self-knowledge grows out of it. Loneliness pushes apart the fabric of social instincts that surround us from birth. Everything repetitive and mundane - that which can develop into the boredom of life - recedes before deepening loneliness. Deepening into oneself is always elevation. Loneliness elevates the individual above the collective and the clan, leads to communication with them, to being, and not staying in them. The horror of loneliness in youth throws a person beyond human world. Chapter 2 Loneliness of a young man 1 It will be shown below that a woman always endures loneliness harder than a man. Loneliness for her is that grinning reality that she seeks to avoid. That is why the theme of loneliness for a woman is always something more obvious than for a man. In the title of this book, the loneliness of a woman did not accidentally come to the fore. However, in youth - in an era of natural loneliness - oddly enough, it is the loneliness of a young man that seems to be something more obvious. This can be explained by the fact that the girl matures much earlier and to a greater extent bears the features of a self-sufficient personality in her youth. This self-sufficient character has been given to it by the entire evolution of the Homo sapiens species; a young man achieves self-sufficiency thanks to an individual strong-willed impulse. Such an impulse presupposes loneliness to a much greater extent, moreover, requires it. The young will of a young man requires dreams that are fundamentally different from those that girls indulge in. These are dreams of one's exclusivity, which should be realized outside of family well-being, or at least not thanks to it. These are dreams of a unique impact on the life of the human world, and such dreams always require solitude. These dreams in youth are a form of real self-knowledge and rise above the team. It is dreams that make a teenager a youth. It's about not just about the intensity of dreams - a teenager dreams quite a lot and passionately - but about their originality. The dreams of a teenager are too herdish, in fact, these are desires (as a rule, sexual and tanatical), dressed in fantastic forms due to the impossibility of satisfying them. They do not require will for their incarnation - a teenager does not have such a will. He, for example, may desire sexual possession beautiful teacher and the death of his enemy from a parallel class, realizing these desires in sophisticated fantasies. It is at this time that stable archetypes of sexual and tanatic fantasies are laid down, accompanying a person throughout his life. They are filled with such teenage hunger that the subsequent saturation of an adult is not able to remove them. It is clear that such fantasies either do not require loneliness at all, or limit the teenager to short-term and purely geometric loneliness ... Unlike a teenager, a young man's dreams are aimed at revealing himself and his will beyond fantasy. So they germinate in the soil of a more fundamental loneliness. This loneliness is a bottomless abyss between the psyche of a teenager and a young man. The mental difference between a teenage girl and a young woman, despite the striking change in appearance, is not significant. Dreams of myself as a beautiful princess and a handsome prince, expressed in touching drawings on last pages notebooks, smoothly turn into a dream of a real wedding with real face male. The quality of romantic illusions is quite simply embodied in the number of imaginary rooms, dresses, and, finally, money. Every girl is a little woman and, having passed from a teenager to a girl, she only affirms herself in this capacity. Moving towards a young man, a teenage boy must always go through the fire of loneliness. This fire scorches his primitive dreams, leaving only himself in them and turning the generic and collective into smoke. “I am alone, and therefore I exist,” the young man says with his being. 2 Loneliness relieves a young man of the guilt towards his parents that any child has. But this is not a simple feeling of guilt for premature sexual fantasies, shrinking before the conjectures of adults (as psychoanalysts believe). The feeling of guilt is much deeper and is connected with the very fact of birth, which is upsetting. love couple parents. The loneliness of a young man as self-knowledge and self-creation helps him to get out of the space of guilt beyond the boundaries of the parental family, to become a self-sufficient person from an attached being. 3 A young man is a teenager who has realized himself as the will to power or the will to contemplate. Both are the will to solitude. Both the will to power and the will to contemplate (in Schopenhauer's terminology, to imagine) begin only in the space of the lonely. The young man masters the element of loneliness, transforms it into solitude and thereby creates a cosmos within himself and kindles the light in this cosmos. 4 All this allows us to distinguish between the lonely and the secluded youth. The first one accidentally falls into the element of loneliness and, suffering, seeks to return back. The secluded one consciously comes into it, striving to find a new fullness of life, still unknown to the family. Ordinary thinking tends to see in solitude only a form of sexual perversion, and this springs from a deep desire to call the will to solitude itself a perversion. 5 A young man retires with a book, and then with a thought and an experience that raises his fantasies above the dreams of a teenager. The unbridled desire to possess and have (women, muscles, money) turns into a desire to be and become oneself. However, such exaltation is possible only through a book, which in many ways is itself the result of the author's loneliness. The book - unlike the film and the play - provides an opportunity for maximum solitary co-creation and empathy - that concentration of spiritual freedom that builds a personality. Unlike music, which dissolves us in being - Divine, natural or generic - the book fills us with a desire for self-knowledge and detachment from being, helping to find the boundaries and infinity of existence in being. However, the book is meant to play its part and step aside. Thinking and experiencing what has been read must be replaced by thinking and experiencing life. This is what will make it possible to move on to creativity as a completeness that goes beyond reading and writing a book - creating oneself as an Act. Otherwise, the bookish infantilism of other writers, academics and religious fanatics is born, demonstrating to the world a transformed form of youthful loneliness... Chapter 3 Loneliness of a Girl 1 A girl does not need loneliness like a young man. Her maturation is due to the whole logic of the spread of the human race across the planet. A girl and then a girl is preparing to become a mother, and this leaves a seal on her personality. The idea of a future birth and motherhood is suggested to a girl with early age and therefore loneliness is seen as a harbinger of tragedy, and solitude as a sin. Of course, a modern civilized society, brought up on market ideals, considers noisy pastime in a company of different sexes to be no less a sin, but it is more understandable and easier to ban. The desire for solitude is much more difficult to imagine as a sin, and therefore it is perceived as something painful, having a purely physical nature. 2 Only an unusual, strange girl can strive for loneliness. This is not about the loneliness of an outcast girl who has not managed to fit into the community of her peers and suffers from this, but about loneliness voluntarily and freely accepted, loneliness-detachment. Entering the space and time of this loneliness, the girl always overcomes the instinctive - and this makes it even more frenzied - opposition of the genus. Such loneliness is more easily perceived by religious (or rather monotheistic) cultures. The atheistic regimes of our time, which are essentially neo-paganism, unequivocally reject the possibility of a girl's loneliness. The powerful art of the totalitarian neo-pagan communities of the 20th century - fascism and communism - depicts a woman not so much as a friend of the conqueror of the new world, but as the material of his children. In order to cut into the future, you need muscle - all new generations of healthy young people. Such people can only be born healthy women having a healthy youth. This attitude towards women leads to
The concept of loneliness, as can be seen from the previous presentation, is endowed by different authors with something close, but not the same content. Obviously, the very phenomenon of loneliness is multidimensional. Summarizing the above, we can highlight the aspects in which this phenomenon is considered in philosophy:
loneliness - "homelessness" - is the uncertainty of the role and meaning of human being in the world; restlessness of man in infinity; lack of pre-established harmony of man with the world (Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Buber, existentialists);
loneliness-unmerging is the original and irresistible isolation of the existence of the "I" from other existences (phenomenology, existentialism);
loneliness-responsibility is the "doom" of each person to an independent choice of a course of action, the impossibility of shifting responsibility for one's choice to another (Sartre and other existentialists);
loneliness-solitude is a voluntary avoidance of contact with other people, pursuing the goal of concentrating on some business, object, oneself (Thoreau, etc.).
Loneliness as a subject of research is of interest not only for philosophy, but also for psychology and sociology. How are these approaches different? scientific disciplines to the phenomenon of loneliness from a philosophical approach?
Psychologists and sociologists attach particular importance to the study of the empirical patterns of this phenomenon; for example, they conduct surveys, identify the degree of susceptibility to loneliness of people belonging to different age and professional categories, determine factors that contribute to the strengthening or weakening of the feeling of loneliness. Philosophy is not interested in the peculiarities of experiencing a feeling of loneliness in certain individuals, not in the random and transient causes of this phenomenon (which may or may not be), but in those common deep "existential" and spiritual foundations from which these feelings grow.
At the same time, it is clear that the philosophical, psychological and sociological approaches complement each other and reflect the phenomenon of loneliness in its multidimensionality. Based on the generalized picture, we can distinguish four of its modes: cosmic, cultural, social, interpersonal loneliness.
Cosmic loneliness is the experience by a person of his remoteness from the "comprehensive" essence, which nature, space, the world can represent; God, " higher intelligence”, “Human history” (Here we mean the state of mind of a person who realizes that his “life program” remains unfulfilled, that his personality is not noticed by society, that he did not leave “his mark on history”.)
Cultural loneliness is a person's feelings associated with the fact that his values, ideals, ideas about what should be, formed in a certain cultural environment, do not find a response and understanding from the people around him. Situations in which a person has such experiences may be due to the following factors:
migration (moving people to live in another country, city, village);
rapid reorientation of society to new values (most often in connection with revolutions, major reforms. In such situations, "conflicts of fathers and children" are typical, representing the old and new culture);
rapid intellectual development individual, which makes it problematic to communicate with people close to you before (an example is Martin Eden, the hero of the novel by J. London).
Social loneliness is a person's experiences due to his exclusion from a certain group or the impossibility of joining a group. Such situations are extremely diverse. Let's name the most common ones: dismissal from work, resignation, retirement, exclusion from the team, ostracism, rejection by the team at the new place of work, etc. The most prone to social loneliness are people belonging to two age groups- Teenagers and old people: the former have an urgent need to make friends for the first time, but do not yet have the necessary communication skills; second, due to old age, leave the usual and habitable spheres of activity, lose their former friends.
Interpersonal loneliness is a person's experience of loss or lack of spiritual connection with another specific, one and only person (close relative, friend, beloved).
The considered classification of the modes of loneliness does not claim to be methodologically infallible, but at the same time it can be useful when we need to analyze the causes of dissatisfaction with the life of a particular person and try to find a way out of the painful state of mind. Loneliness is multidimensional, and it is important to be able to discern the specific mode of loneliness of a given person. Experts note that loneliness can lead to severe personality disorders, a state of "existential vacuum", depression, suicide, and antisocial behavior. This explains the growing concern and desire to study this phenomenon in depth.
An excerpt from the book "Phenomena of human existence", Demidov Alexander Borisovich.
