Everything outside of our grasp is just an unconfirmed rumor. We don’t understand love songs fully until we fall in/out of love, we can’t comprehend a way a parent loves until we’re a mother/father our self, success is a myth until we reach it… We are our experience.

Community, belonging, the protection of being loved and the courage gained by loving are central needs of a human. To survive as a species we have to collaborate, be civil and consider others to be able to work together. We need to be socialized and able to spend a certain amount of our time surrounded by others. When we grow up alone time, undisturbed by wants, conversation on the mundane logistics and schedules, becomes just as necessary. As there is no real objectivity in experience when you’re human – because you see the world not as it is but as you are – your whole universe and life is a construct within you and before any other interventions in reality (physical or social) must stand personal work, things have to be processed and integrated wthin you, alone. For this you may sometimes require support of a group through some stages ( in grieving, battling addiction, education…), but more times than not you will need to go at it alone.

The percentages your natural or acquired levels of introversion or extraversion may vary. You may feel full after seeing your friends or can only handle a few hours a day spent with one of them at a time, you may find your mission in serving others but once the curtain closes on the day prefer to stand alone in the sunset or never feel as good as when a whole crowd of your loved ones is in the room… it doesn’t matter. The nature of being social comes with a price tag – you become les “raw” than the person you are alone, some parts are put on hold, denied and shushed, suppressed and polished (it’s not neccesarily a bad thing, the social suppresses some vial things in you as well). You may need to be a gracious host on days you feel melancholic, keep it all together to care for someone or pretend youre fine not ot rain on someone’s parade… you attention necessarily gets fragmented through empathy and interactions.

Run away into solitude sometimes. It may be a physical place where you go to be alone or a purely mental solitude anywhere – in your room or apartment, the Shala, shrine or a church, woods, the beach, it may be a simple walk where you disengage from the social as its observer, not participating. Even the ultimate extrovert has to just be alone sometimes. You don’t need to feel guilty for asking for it, enjoying it, nor do you need to explain yourself or submit an account on what you do when you’re completely alone. You just are. Alone is not lonely.