One can experience loneliness in two ways: by feeling lonely in the world or by feeling the loneliness of the world. Individual loneliness is a personal drama; one can feel lonely even in the midst of great natural beauty. An outcast in the world, indifferent to its being dazzling or dismal, self-consumed with triumphs and failures, engrossed in inner drama—such is the fate of the solitary. The feeling of cosmic loneliness, on the other hand, stems not so much from man’s subjective agony as from an awareness of the world’s isolation, of objective nothingness. It is as if all the splendors of this world were to vanish at once, leaving behind the dull monotony of a cemetery. Many are haunted by the vision of an abandoned world encased in glacial solitude, untouched by even the pale reflections of a crepuscular light. Who is more unhappy? He who feels his own loneliness or he who feels the loneliness of the world? Impossible to tell, and besides, why should I bother with a classification of loneliness? Is it not enough that one is alone?
― Emil M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE
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And it’s lonely / And one day it won’t be lonely / It will just be solitude / And one day this solitude will swallow me whole
Wasted ABQ Summer
Bimbo Ubermensch -
It’s hard, certainly — it’s painful and exhausting and fundamentally terrifying to rip yourself open and leave the guts at the mercy of the people you choose to love. But if I know anything, I know this: It’s better than being alone.
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Where could you find offenses in solitude in order to practice these virtues? In solitude, there is no one with whom to talk, and so you live in involuntary silence, but in the community, there are the guarding of the senses and the guarding of the tongue. Guarding the senses is a virtue found in the community because in the desert there is nothing for the senses to gather. Likewise with guarding the tongue, you must gain the virtue of silence in the community before you venture out to solitude.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us
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During your time in the community, you are testing yourself to see if you can bear with people. Do you lose your peace? Do you hate people? Or do you try to avenge oneself? If you try to isolate yourself in order not to engage in these troubles, you are likened to a person who refuses to take an exam for fear of failing. The result is that you will not graduate. The correct action is for a person to take the exam and pass. It is easy to sit alone and not make mistakes. Neither will the devil leave you; he will give you even more thoughts than people would, to the point that you will leave your cell saying, “It is better to deal with people than to deal with this mental warfare.” Take the test and succeed.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us
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Community interactions provide an opportunity for you to try yourself, overcome your weaknesses, and gain virtues. One time, a monk went to the abbot of the monastery asking to be released to go to another monastery. The abbot asked if anyone troubled him, to which he responded, “No, but I need to go attain virtues. Here, no one wrongs me, that I may forgive him; no one offends me, that I may pardon him; no one persecutes me, that I may endure him. So, where will I attain these virtues? I need to go to a place where I can attain virtues.” If you remain steadfast, and the community troubles come to you, then say, “Yes, this is where I will attain virtues.” If someone upsets you, say, “Yes, God sent you to me so that I can attain the virtue of endurance.”
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us
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Worship must come from a pure heart. Likewise, if purity of heart does not precede the life of solitude, it turns from solitude into introversion, from a means of worship to the goal of fleeing from people, or intolerance of people, or as one of the fathers put it, “Such a person spends a hundred years in his cell, and does not even learn how one should sit.” Therefore, we need to place purity of heart as the primary goal before us. Purity of heart requires you to search yourself, know your mistakes, and work on them.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Monastic Treasures for All of Us
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A lesson to a new priest
A priest from Alexandria, a spiritual child of St. Pishoy Kamel, explains:
My first interaction with my dear Fr. Pishoy was immediately after my return from my forty-day retreat at the monastery following my ordination. I sat with him and asked him for a word of benefit as I begin my service. The following conversation took place.
He began, “Do you know who I remember when, at the end of the liturgy, I search for every single jewel (the crumbs) remaining from the Body, ensuring none are left behind in the paten?”
I sat quiet, knowing full well that anything I would say would not be what Fr. Pishoy was looking to teach me. I was sure he was going to give me a piece of advice out of his own vast experience in the ministry.
He continued, “The jewels remind me of the people who are left unseen and forgotten. We must search them out, and never leave them behind, for they are a part of Christ’s Body.”
For a second time, I sat quiet, and I smiled. I was taught a lesson I would never forget so long as I live.
Fr. Pishoy Kamel constantly looked for those who had no one to remember or care for them. Every person had immense value to him. Those far from the church were his priority. Those who were rejected, he accepted. Those who were suffering, he embraced with such warmth.
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“Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
… It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision – it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
SO GOOD QUOTES 