There Is No Definition

Many ideas are abstract. Love, faith, courage. None of them can be clearly defined, because to each person they are a little bit different. But most people carry the same general feelings about them.

Love is when you're wanted, or you enjoy something. Faith is believing, in one manner or another. Courage is doing something that takes mental or emotional strength.

But there is one idea that baffles me. Loneliness. It is a curious thing.

What is it really to be lonely? Usually, according to the word's root, it's said that being alone is being lonely.

But that's not really true, now is it? There are plenty of nights that I spend by myself at my house, and I don't feel lonely in the slightest. I even rather enjoy it at times.

And going along with that, there are also times when I'm surrounded by friends or people I know, and I still feel lonely. I am by no means by myself, but somehow I still feel like inside, I am completely solitary.

So what is loneliness, if it's not that? If the direct definition doesn't actually apply, what does?

Some days I feel like loneliness can be caused by one missing thing. A finished book, the loss of an environment. I felt very lonely after Oklahoma finished, because no matter what I did, there was not the comfort of the place and the people with which I had spent so much time.

Loneliness is people. While that analogy itself is illogical, it's very true. In the blink of an eye, people can make you feel either entirely alone, or the complete opposite.

There are days when I talk to few, text none, and think of other things. Those days I am completely fine. I am alone, to be sure, but I am not lonely. Whereas other days when that happens, I check my phone every two minutes to see if somebody finally texted me back and I just missed it. Which usually is not the case.

So I am left completely confounded.

I finished a book recently, The Power of One. It left me very lonely. It filled my thoughts for days, and then it was over and done and gone from my hands, but not from my mind.

One thought that it left behind for good was the virtue of independence. Not political independence, or financial independence, but emotional independence. To build yourself a fortress and let nothing in, except the few things that really deserve your sincere and heartfelt attentions.

Things seem to mean so much more that way. And then the loneliness bird cannot build its nest of stones inside of me.