Loneliness is not an act of hunting. Loneliness is not a case to be solved. It is not an activity that one needs to overcome.
Loneliness is not Socrates going to the Oracle, it is him holding the hemlock amongst all. Loneliness is Galileo gazing at tiny specks of Moon for the first time through an apparatus. Loneliness is a horse with extra hooves limping with load on its back. Loneliness is not someone sitting alone on a bench, it is, in the first place, the very bench holding onto land, land holding onto earth, the earth, thereby, holding onto the galaxy - a galaxy that, if one listens to it carefully, sounds like the noise of water flushing out from an empty cistern. Loneliness is the sound of brushing one's teeth every day. Loneliness is also the monotonous movement of the thumb changing reels, on Instagram, without break.
Even if Loneliness can be resolved - at all, the effect always seems momentary.
One poet* arrests an object to rationalize the attention he wants when he writes:
Bahut Shadeed Tavajjoh Ka Saamna Tha Mujhe
So Ik Glass Ko Paani Se Bhar Liya mein Ne
Does it suffice?
Should it suffice?
By drawing an individual, an object into the vicinity of your Self, in order to exorcise loneliness, all one does is smear more loneliness onto them.
Despite all this, it is what it is - in us, around us, surrounding us. We are afflicted with it. It is our original condition. Gregariousness - a facade, maybe, how we try to ignore it. Some do it consciously, some out of habit, some unconsciously. But when the poet exposes himself to anyone else, he finds something else:
Apne Khala Mein Laa K Ye Tumko Dikha Raha Hoon Mein
Woh Jo Khala-naward Hain Unke Liye Khala Hoon Mein
Interestingly, the khala-naward cannot be separated, subtracted from the khala that encompasses all. It is what defines him/her.
or,
as the poet° would put it:
You get so alone at times that it just makes sense.
- a sense that would not make any sense if explained.
When one is alone in the house even the gurgling of one's own body seems strange. One seems, in those moments, more alert to the things happening, outside/inside, and gradually, the distinctions fade away. Probably that is how one pays obeisance to the inherent lonely nature of things. It is like mixing food that may lead to a brand new delicious variety. This, however, should not come at the cost of not being able to eat the original food items separately ever. Mixing food is Loneliness. To misquote Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a crowd
that roams amid the cities on pills
then all at once I saw a shroud
a ghost of putrid dunghills...
Loneliness is, also, someone retching on the winding roads to reach a particular spot (beautiful or otherwise), high among the mountains.
One’s loneliness could also be somebody else’s succulent gossip.
We don't reek of loneliness, we smell of it.
* Faizan Hashmi
° Charles Bukowski
