Apr 10, 2018
When You’re Sitting In Between Goodbye and Hello
And really hanging solo while solo traveling
It doesn’t happen often that I’m alone while traveling “alone”. But my best friend in Nepal left this morning for Kathmandu. And I feel my heart heavy.
A pang, a slight burn in my chest. Like something inside me needs to be quelled. And often that need to be quelled — that mild desperation — is the driving force of my interactions with others while traveling.
But I don’t want to feel this lacking. I want to feel great alone.
I know it’s normal that I don’t feel great. After all, being social is a key component in the survival of many animals such as dogs and human beings. That heavy instinct to be with others — to be sad when you’re alone — is very much natural and is a sign of my humanness. I know that. But I still want to find happiness in solitude. In my aloneness.
And I don’t want negativity to motivate my interactions — I’m sad, so let me go make friends — there’s something sneaky about it all.
And when I say alone: I mean there is no certain promise of me meeting anyone in the near future. For an extrovert like myself, this can be painful. Many people feel anxious when they are about to meet friends. I feel anxious when I’m alone and have no plans to meet friends.
But I don’t want it to be so. Instead, when I’m alone, I want to be overflowing with happiness, so much so that I feel the urge to share it with others. That’s the place I want to be. That’s the motivation I want to feel for going out and meeting people: not sadness, not negativity. Those are icky things to spring on a stranger.
I see the people over there at the Juicery, the restaurant next to the one where I’m currently sitting and working from my laptop. I’ve met a few of them before. When I walked by and said “hello” they even offered to make room for me to sit with them.
But I need to get some work done so I said no. But I was tempted. To solidify something into more than acquaintances with people who are still here.
Since my friend left, there is no one I feel really close to. And I have to start over again. It’s an effort. And people are often disappointing. Which is on me. I should work on seeing the light in everyone. No one is perfect, but everyone’s got something you can take interest in. You just have to find it.
I’ve become friends with hundreds of people the last few years. And sometimes you keep having the same discussions… and I’m not even talking about:
“Where are you from?”
“How long have you been traveling?”
That’s for toddlers. Even slightly deeper topics, with more open-ended answers, I’ve become so unfazed by: “You did a silent meditation retreat? How was it?”
“What did you think of India?”
And it’s almost like everyone agreed on giving the same responses to these questions. Or I just can’t help but hear the same things. And with me, maybe it’s that I’ve agreed with myself that I will respond in this or that way to this question or that question.
And so when people ask me things, it’s like I’m pressing play on the cassette tape that is my voice, instead of speaking from the heart. Which is my fault. If I’m bored, it’s time to answer on the fly even if the response isn’t as interesting as the well-thought-out canned version I’ve said a million times before.
Anyway, I will try to sit here existing. Aware of my pain but not giving it any importance. Despite having no compadres, I’m relatively relaxed, in a beautiful place, overlooking the mountains and the lake surrounding Pokhara, Nepal.
And why, logically, should I feel uneasy?
No, I don’t know these people well, anyone within any sound radius, but I know they will help me if I need them.
People will always help me.
There’s nothing to be afraid of. When I feel like I want to make friends, I can. Even if end up having a few bullshit conversations to get there. Aloneness. It’s a practice. So for now, no friends.
We are born alone, we die alone. Between these two realities we create a thousand and one illusions of being together — all kinds of relationships, friends and enemies, loves and hates, nations, races, religions. We create all kinds of hallucinations just to avoid one fact: that we are alone. But whatsoever we do, the truth cannot be changed. It is so, and rather than trying to escape from it, the best way is to rejoice in it. -Osho
