Story that feels lonely, despite being set in a packed city

The feeling of loneliness is not just about being alone. It is about creating a world for oneself. You can be very busy in your own world with no one around or be in a diametrically opposite situation even with a city packed with people but not knowing what to do with it.

We have scientists working in research organizations located in crowded cities and preferring to remain lonely and only focusing on their topic of research and everything that is related to that. Others who cannot afford to visualize a place that could substitute the present state of living. Feeling lonely loses its priority for them. As the saying goes Beggars can’t be choosers. Or as another saying, ponders “If wishes were horses beggars would ride”.

There are of course moments in life when one feels lonely and which would remain so even if one is amidst family members, packed city, peers and well-wishers. This could crop up when some mishap happens and that too all of a sudden, unexpectedly and without notice. We find ourselves floating aimlessly till we find something, someone, somewhere and somehow to anchor. This could occur not only for animate things but also for inanimate things.

When some vacuum is created for a post, the post remains vacant and lonely until somebody is found and appointed to close the ranks. The vacant post also feels lonely and probably sad for becoming handicapped till the moment reaches and the new person breathes in life into the vacant post notifying its existence.

The role that time plays in mitigating the sorrow of loneliness cannot be overemphasized. It opens up paths, ways, alternatives, atmosphere, situations, and becomes a panacea for ailment of alienation and loneliness.

The reality of associations and that too for a prolonged period of time paralyses or should I say freezes the reasoning faculty into thinking that this relationship is going to remain forever.

The limitations of the human sense organs also remain a cause for the feeling of loneliness. If your friend or family member is required to go to a faraway place and your eyes and ears cannot see or hear, such experience is that of loneliness as the eyes and ears and others sense organs have become habituated and it becomes strange and unaccustomed to the new situation to a kind of void, vacuum and vacant environment.

After having deliberated to some extent on the causes of loneliness let us now think of and also search for the effects of loneliness. If loneliness is a result of the demise of a family member and near relative or a close friend, it is more likely to affect your routine in most cases in some measure and also in some cases in a substantial measure.

Lots of essays, stories, novels are written, manuscripts are perused, plays are enacted, movies are screened, soap operas keenly watched, that show both sides of the story or both sides of the coin. Some works highlight the philosophy that Man is a social animal and therefore needs company, may it be of human beings or may be of pets or activities to engage with. There are also works that take a view that man is not a social animal, he is basically alone. He is born alone and dies alone. He cries when he comes into the outside world and makes the outside world cry when he leaves the world.

The authors of such novels and stories create a world and such characters that give a semblance of confinement zone, some sort of a prison, some sort of a cage, where the character finds him physically isolated and in solitude. The character even though in a packed and crowded city is confined to the four walls, forbidden to know what is going on in the outside world or interact with the outside world as he is considered unsafe and detrimental to the peace and safe existence of the other fellow human beings.

The authors of such works are also of the belief that human beings can survive for many years without the requirement of the physical presence of other human beings. He only requires the faculty of imagination and can very well revel in the dream world he creates for himself away, from the real world.

It is all about how you take or accept the present state that you are in, that shapes your future. You can weigh the pros and cons of being alone and become lonely or be alone and feel free from any hindrance, interventions, disturbances, and that is possibly or more likely termed as one who looks at existence as a glass half empty or half full, he may be considered as one who is either an optimist or a pessimist, wishing to scale higher and higher or one always worrying about being hurled headlong into bottomless perdition.

If one reflects on the term lonely and tries to understand the essence of the term and also ponder over their own experiences at various points in time and at various places and locations some things become more clear. In my case based on my experience, it is better not to have anything and have the world around you than having everything for you and nobody around you. It is a frightening landscape.

If lonely means not to have anybody to share your happiness and sorrows then obviously is not a preferred position to be in. While on the contrary lonely means just to be alone but in communication with the outside world it could be being in a healthy position in terms of making the best use of the moments with right kind of associations, at right point of time, at right distance and right frame of mind to take right decisions. A few examples would be handy to prove the point. I vividly remember, on the passing of my mother after a decade of passing of my father, the only property they made out of their lifetime efforts was handed over to me in a platter. I stepped into that gift of a house after the close of the obsequies in thirteen days period and no sooner I was inside the house, tempest of tears overtook and overpowered me at the very thought of having the house but not the real deservers of the house. It was how lonely I was at that hour.