"I fare badly among humans:

I cry and they mock;

I talk and nobody understands;

I see and they never see!"

(Adam Mickiewicz, Romanticism)

In how far does man feel lonely inspite of social contacts? Why does one retreat from a community and look for loneliness?

Hermann Hausmann - 24.02.2019 @ 10:26

Unlocking the secrets of loneliness

by Amelia Marchewczyk, VIII LO Kraków/Poland

Loneliness- that one, seemingly simple word is quite commonly used these days. Within a minute, one can easily name at least 5 acquaintances, book or movie characters who can be described as lonely. But seldom do people understand what that really means. They generally tend to define loneliness as the state of living alone and not having friends or family around. Nonetheless, the scientists regard it rather as the feeling that there is a gap between the life that someone would like to lead and the one that he or she actually does. For instance, living alone is not a problem for an introvert, but for a kind of person who needs company- it is indeed. According to the statistics, the most lonely generation are young adults- people at the age of 18-22. So at this point an inevitable question is being raised- where does that come from?

The list of the reasons would be endless, as every person perceives the world and the environment in a different, subjective way. However, it is commonly known that the world is continually changing, and consequently every single change affects people’s lives. For instance, nowadays people are being offered an inconceivably wide range of emerging technologies, which might seem helpful in such cases as long-distance relationships, albeit it actually results in the absence of face-to-face contact between people. This especially involves the aforementioned group of young adults, who are the ones who use electronic devices the most often. The worst thing about substituting real life contact with chatting via Facebook or Skype is that it appears the same, even though it’s incomparable. Therefore, one of the factors contributing to the increase of loneliness in society is the development of technology.

It all looked different when the telephones and the Internet hadn’t been invented yet. For instance, during the Romantic period, as shown in literature, many people felt lonely, but the reasons why were not the same. The poem ‘Romanticism’ written by the Polish national prophet Adam Mickiewicz, would be a perfect example. The writing tells a story of a young girl, Karusia, who misses her beloved Jasieńko, whom she can see even though he passed away only a short time ago. People from her environment don’t believe her and think that she took leave of her senses. On this account she feels like alienating herself and craves to reunite with her beloved one in the underworld, because she can’t bare being laughed at perpetually. Also, she believes that there isn’t any barrier between the real and extramundane world, which makes her even more isolated from the conservative community. The characters in the poem represent values of the Age of Enlightenment- rationality and mind contrasted to values of the upcoming Age of Romaticism- feelings, folk wisdom and imagination. Mickiewicz expressly shows his attitude towards the conflict of viewpoints of the Age of the Reason and Romaticism- he stands for for the power of folk beliefs, spiritituality, individualism and imagination. As it can be seen in ‘Romanticism’, sometimes one can feel lonely because of ones opinions, which may be different from those of the people around, especially when particular sets of beliefs are assigned to distinct generations.

The story of Karusia resembles another book character, who felt excluded from society- however, she was the one who caused her loneliness or rather chose to isolate herself. Carrie, the main character of Caren Lissner’s novel ‘Carrie Pilby’ is undoubtedly an extraordinary girl, who graduates from Harvard University at the age of 19. However this young genius can’t cope with social life, mostly because she originally tends to consider most of the people as not interesting or clever enough for her. As the action unfolds, we can see her struggling one step at a time to overcome loneliness and learning how to function in society without losing her individuality. Since Carrie has a very inquisitive mind and some wise afterthoughts, I highly recommend reading this book.

As it was mentioned at the beginning and shown through the given examples, the reasons of loneliness are scarce to be counted- no matter whether they lie in one’s hands, or they can be attributed to various circumstances. Anywise what should be kept in mind is that loneliness, like other feelings, is a subjective issue, specific for everybody.

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Hi! I really liked your article, I think that it's very well written and interesting to read. I also think that you chose a very interesting topic to write about, and I agree with you that loneliness has increased parallel to the evolution of technology. The part of your text about Carrie reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. I think that he is lonely (before John Watson) but that he doesn't quite know it. He is presented in a very cold-hearted way but I think he is more emotional than most people think. Your text reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes books. 

Beata Ernstig - 09.05.2019 @ 11:31

Hello Amelia,

I really enjoyed reading your article and can totally agree with your opinion.

For me an example of a lonely girl is Anne Frank. Although she was surrounded by her family she felt lonely. In her diary she often mentioned that she felt misunderstood and could not talk to anyone about her problems. She had always had deep thoughts, which is really uncommen for her age. So she started to write a diary in which she talked about her thoughts and has inspired millions of people since then.

Annalena Sieberer - 19.05.2019 @ 22:32

Hi Amelia! Thank you for your interesting article. This is my opinion on this topic. 

The problem of loneliness is addressed by the book 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The main character leaves his planet feeling misunderstood and lonely. He looks for a friend on other asteroids, but none of the men he meets is suitable.
When the boy arrives on Earth, he meets a snake which explains to him the essence of loneliness:
''Where are the people?'' resumed the little prince at last. ''It’s a little lonely in the desert…'' ''It is lonely when you’re among people, too'', said the snake.

In today's world it is increasingly difficult to find true and lasting friendship. The Internet has completely changed the relationships between people. Instead of talking face to face, getting to know each other, teaching respect, accepting differences, more and more people are based on fleeting and superficial acquaintances.
 Finally, the fox shows him what true friendship is about:
''Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready - made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me...''

Joanna Stolarska - 14.06.2019 @ 22:11

Hi Amelia!

Thank you for your article. I really loved it!

Loneliness is a big part of my life. I often find  myself  alone, but not because I don’t have friends or my social skills are poor. It’s because I choose to.  Guess I’m that kind of a person. There is actually a very similar character in a book called "The Old man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway. His name is Santiago and he also  spends a lot of his time alone. He’s an old fisherman who has an ability to really admire the nature around him.  I think loneliness  isn’t always terrible. It’s sometimes necessary to slow down a little bit. Our life flows too fast. Santiago has that rare ability to stay  on the sea on his own  and think  about meaningful parts of life. And I feel like that’s one of the most important skills.

Dominika Gwóźdź - 16.06.2019 @ 19:17

Hello dear Amelia!

It is a really interesting article and it's well written. The article contains a current topic that we can relate to. That makes it even more attractive and meaningful. We both can relate to the feeling of being alone. In the 21st century it is even harder to be socialized in a real community. In addition, social media are made for the better communication between people, in our opinion they do not reach this goal. Nowdays social media have a new meaning: They are a possibility to judge people and build up fake friendships. Futhermore, you could lose yourself by spending so much time on the internet. The result is loneliness.

Moreover, there is another type of loneliness: If you have special interests it is harder to connect to people. You have to change yourself to feel welcome in a society. 

Those problems affect especially the younger generations who get the feeling of being not enough. They want to be perfect, but there aren´t perfect people, so they get self-doubts and shut themselves out of society.

We have to stop this kind of bullying by changing ourselves. A good way to help is to be more open-minded. 

Edit Larsson - 03.10.2019 @ 14:00