Negative connotations of being alone and looking within | Page 2 | INFJ Forum

Negative connotations of being alone and looking within

So why do skinny wannaba musicians with long greasy hair and no money get girls? :grinning:

Sure they might not keep them, or they might not get the fancy super succesful/rich girls, but they can definitely get some hot hipster chick.

Things are complicated. People are strange. They might want different things that what you value.

However, yes, you're right that associative mating exist. But if you ask me, I don't want a top notch lawyer for a gf that will work 70 hours per week.
 
We are such different people @Pin :tearsofjoy: but it is nice to see how other people think. Their views on life and how it should be played out.

I suppose I'd like to think that women aren't as materialistic as that, but we are a hotch potch of all types.
Fair enough.

It's a spectrum, a lot of women care about personality but they also like money, power, and a healthy physical appearance. Some moreso than others. It just sounds shallow to bluntly admit it so they're probably not going to.

If you want to have the widest range of appeal though, you've got to have the whole package: money, power, looks, charisma.

dwight-eisenhower-q-1040cs071312.jpg
 
There are a few Jung quotes I like that relate to this topic:

'Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens'

'The experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego'

'Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.'

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'

These are fairly common quotes but it makes sense to me that there are people who primarily resist transformation and those who are able to overcome the feeling of defeat that transformation entails.

Isolation and introspection can be avoidance techniques just as much as any 'external' action. In this case, because the mental problems which can result are less understood and more difficult to remedy than an obvious 'acting out', it is fair to say that it can be dangerous. Arguably, if you live somewhere relatively safe with decent physical healthcare and police, moreso. Perhaps the risks associated with 'psychonautics' is part of the reason for the general aversion to being alone and the projection of these fears onto others.

Equally, however, it may be something of a numbers game for those who are introspectively inclined. If there is no 'reaction' with most people one encounters, introspection likely increases leading to increased alienation from others. This can be for good or ill and it is not always immediately apparent which is which unless one adopts an honest 'quality over quantity' attitude to (intimate) relationships and sticks to it, reducing the chances of a negative transformative relationship.
 
There are a few Jung quotes I like that relate to this topic:

'Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens'

'The experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego'

'Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.'

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'

These are fairly common quotes but it makes sense to me that there are people who primarily resist transformation and those who are able to overcome the feeling of defeat that transformation entails.

Isolation and introspection can be avoidance techniques just as much as any 'external' action. In this case, because the mental problems which can result are less understood and more difficult to remedy than an obvious 'acting out', it is fair to say that it can be dangerous. Arguably, if you live somewhere relatively safe with decent physical healthcare and police, moreso. Perhaps the risks associated with 'psychonautics' is part of the reason for the general aversion to being alone and the projection of these fears onto others.

Equally, however, it may be something of a numbers game for those who are introspectively inclined. If there is no 'reaction' with most people one encounters, introspection likely increases leading to increased alienation from others. This can be for good or ill and it is not always immediately apparent which is which unless one adopts an honest 'quality over quantity' attitude to (intimate) relationships and sticks to it, reducing the chances of a negative transformative relationship.
Great points.
 
parks etc but it is not true nature)
:tearsofjoy:

There are a few Jung quotes I like that relate to this topic:

'Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens'

'The experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego'

'Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.'

'The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.'

These are fairly common quotes but it makes sense to me that there are people who primarily resist transformation and those who are able to overcome the feeling of defeat that transformation entails.

Isolation and introspection can be avoidance techniques just as much as any 'external' action. In this case, because the mental problems which can result are less understood and more difficult to remedy than an obvious 'acting out', it is fair to say that it can be dangerous. Arguably, if you live somewhere relatively safe with decent physical healthcare and police, moreso. Perhaps the risks associated with 'psychonautics' is part of the reason for the general aversion to being alone and the projection of these fears onto others.

Equally, however, it may be something of a numbers game for those who are introspectively inclined. If there is no 'reaction' with most people one encounters, introspection likely increases leading to increased alienation from others. This can be for good or ill and it is not always immediately apparent which is which unless one adopts an honest 'quality over quantity' attitude to (intimate) relationships and sticks to it, reducing the chances of a negative transformative relationship.
*Thumbs up
 
It is always about balance. I am currently in process of understanding how not being alone has crippled my ability to really know myself, and how in not really knowing, accepting, and loving myself, I have not truly been able to be present as myself in relationship to anyone else.

Yet, on the other side, we are inherently social. Any "I" is the product of influence of our social experience. I would even go so far as to suggest there actually is no experience of being alone, because we are always a part.

Yet, we need to know our unique shape to know how we fit.

I used to be very afraid of being alone and relying on my own thoughts and intuition because I didn't want to get too "weird."

I think I now have enough self-acceptance to acknowledge I am weird, have always been weird, and any "fitting" has just been an act.

It takes courage to be.

I do think it may be sad to be disconnected from the unity in life. However, I think coupling is just one of the ways to experience our connection beyond ourselves.

This is so interesting as a topic because of what I am currently going through. Thanks!

I felt a bit of synchronicity this morning when the following article showed up in my in box. Given your topic, thought I'd share it here:

Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself
“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
BY MARIA POPOVA


Something strange and wondrous begins to happen when one spends stretches of time in solitude, in the company of trees, far from the bustle of the human world with its echo chamber of judgments and opinions — a kind of rerooting in one’s deepest self-knowledge, a relearning of how to simply be oneself, one’s most authentic self. Wendell Berry knew this when he observed that “true solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation” — the places where “one’s inner voices become audible.”

But that inner voice, I have found, exists in counterpoise to the outer voice — the more we are tasked with speaking, with orienting lip and ear to the world without, the more difficult it becomes to hear the hum of the world within and feel its magmatic churns of self-knowledge. “Who knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in in her superb poetic, philosophical, feminist more-than-translation of the Tao te Ching.


Kahlil Gibran, self-portrait
Two and a half millennia after Lao Tzu, and a century before Le Guin and Berry, Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) — another philosopher-poet of the highest order and most timeless hold — addressed the relationship between silence, solitude, and self-knowledge in a portion of his 1923 classic The Prophet (public library).

When Gibran’s prophet-protagonist is asked to address the matter of talking, he responds:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.


One of Andrea Dezsö’s haunting illustrations for the original, uncensored edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales
Echoing Hermann Hesse’s insistence on the courage necessary for solitude, Gibran’s prophet adds:

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

Complement this fragment of the The Prophet — an abidingly rewarding read in its totality — with sound ecologist Gordon Hempton on the art of listening in a noisy world and Paul Goodman on the nine kinds of silence, then revisit Gibran on the building blocks of true friendship, the courage to weather the uncertainties of love, and what may be the finest advice ever offered on parenting and on the balance of intimacy and independence in a healthy relationship.

https://www.brainpickings.org/
 
It is always about balance. I am currently in process of understanding how not being alone has crippled my ability to really know myself, and how in not really knowing, accepting, and loving myself, I have not truly been able to be present as myself in relationship to anyone else.

Yet, on the other side, we are inherently social. Any "I" is the product of influence of our social experience. I would even go so far as to suggest there actually is no experience of being alone, because we are always a part.

Yet, we need to know our unique shape to know how we fit.

I used to be very afraid of being alone and relying on my own thoughts and intuition because I didn't want to get too "weird."

I think I now have enough self-acceptance to acknowledge I am weird, have always been weird, and any "fitting" has just been an act.

It takes courage to be.

I do think it may be sad to be disconnected from the unity in life. However, I think coupling is just one of the ways to experience our connection beyond ourselves.

This is so interesting as a topic because of what I am currently going through. Thanks!

I felt a bit of synchronicity this morning when the following article showed up in my in box. Given your topic, thought I'd share it here:

Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself
“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
BY MARIA POPOVA


Something strange and wondrous begins to happen when one spends stretches of time in solitude, in the company of trees, far from the bustle of the human world with its echo chamber of judgments and opinions — a kind of rerooting in one’s deepest self-knowledge, a relearning of how to simply be oneself, one’s most authentic self. Wendell Berry knew this when he observed that “true solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation” — the places where “one’s inner voices become audible.”

But that inner voice, I have found, exists in counterpoise to the outer voice — the more we are tasked with speaking, with orienting lip and ear to the world without, the more difficult it becomes to hear the hum of the world within and feel its magmatic churns of self-knowledge. “Who knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in in her superb poetic, philosophical, feminist more-than-translation of the Tao te Ching.


Kahlil Gibran, self-portrait
Two and a half millennia after Lao Tzu, and a century before Le Guin and Berry, Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883–April 10, 1931) — another philosopher-poet of the highest order and most timeless hold — addressed the relationship between silence, solitude, and self-knowledge in a portion of his 1923 classic The Prophet (public library).

When Gibran’s prophet-protagonist is asked to address the matter of talking, he responds:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.


One of Andrea Dezsö’s haunting illustrations for the original, uncensored edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales
Echoing Hermann Hesse’s insistence on the courage necessary for solitude, Gibran’s prophet adds:

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

Complement this fragment of the The Prophet — an abidingly rewarding read in its totality — with sound ecologist Gordon Hempton on the art of listening in a noisy world and Paul Goodman on the nine kinds of silence, then revisit Gibran on the building blocks of true friendship, the courage to weather the uncertainties of love, and what may be the finest advice ever offered on parenting and on the balance of intimacy and independence in a healthy relationship.

https://www.brainpickings.org/

Thanks for this tovlo .. I will spend a little more time reading this through tonight. Also the Jungian comments made previously seem to sit well with me.

One comment quickly was about being in nature, true nature without the "human obligation"

It is weird but when I do go to the "wild places" (parts of the bush that few people venture to) I never felt alone as much as I did with all these people around me back at home

I used to wonder how people could live alone in the wild up until that point. Then I realised there is such peace to be had. You are, and can only be truly authentic. because no-one is watching.

I have felt utterly alone with my ex. There was little connection, and the ache of loneliness wraps itself that much more tightly around for you know it is there for the taking, but not given.

Again being totally alone in the "wild places" there is no connection to have or even see close around. Perhaps there is soemthing to think on there .. :/
 
I prefer to be alone when I think. I'd rather face all my crazy emotions or whatevers bothering me and sulk, then come out of it. I can literally sit in a room and overthink at times though, sometimes it even works my anxiety up. But I'd rather much be alone, I'm accustomed to it. When people are around and socializing is nice. But not all the time, I dont like alot of people.. and for some reason I work in retail. Pff.
 
I think it all depends on how you spend that alone time and what you're thinking about when you 'look within.' For example, excessive rumination and obsessive thinking permanently rewires the brain and is linked to mental illness. Consistently reviewing negative past experiences and overanalyzing the content of your thoughts and feelings can contribute to hypersensitivity, anxiety, and depression. If you get too comfortable in your alone time, if you don't bother branching out and gaining new experiences because its easier to just keep yourself company than bother with other people, your comfort zone shrinks and things that are commonplace to the average person might seem like an ordeal for you and boom, over time, you have a harder and harder time connecting with others.

Or worse... your reality.

Then there's the matter of what you do when you're alone, what type of information you consume. If you don't have a variety of interests and subjects that serve as food for thought, your perspective narrows. If you don't have a variation in the way you think and resolve problems, your perspective narrows. And overthinking tends to create more problems (and anxieties) than it solves.

Sometimes having someone else there to 'check' your thoughts, and give you feedback is exactly what is needed to think your way out of a problem. It's remarkably easy to get lost in the forest of your mind if you wander there too long. Some things require solving on your own. Some things may require a little help from your friends.

So yes, introspection is important, and alone time can be a way we can recalibrate and connect with ourselves, but not every type of 'introspection' and 'alone time' is healthy... and its not something that you can do for too long to the exclusion of other life experiences. Balance is key.
 
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I think it all depends on how you spend that alone time and what you're thinking about when you 'look within.' For example, excessive rumination and obsessive thinking permanently rewires the brain and is linked to mental illness. Consistently reviewing negative past experiences and overanalyzing the content of your thoughts and feelings can contribute to hypersensitivity, anxiety, and depression. If you get too comfortable in your alone time, if you don't bother branching out and gaining new experiences because its easier to just keep yourself company than bother with other people, your comfort zone shrinks and things that are commonplace to the average person might seem like an ordeal for you and boom, over time, you have a harder and harder time connecting with others.

Or worse... your reality.

Then there's the matter of what you do when you're alone, what type of information you consume. If you don't have a variety of interests and subjects that serve as food for thought, your perspective narrows. If you don't have a variation in the way you think and resolve problems, your perspective narrows. And overthinking tends to create more problems (and anxieties) than it solves.

Sometimes having someone else there to 'check' your thoughts, and give you feedback is exactly what is needed to think your way out of a problem. It's remarkably easy to get lost in the forest of your mind if you wander there too long. Some things require solving on your own. Some things may require a little help from your friends.

So yes, introspection is important, and alone time can be a way we can recalibrate and connect with ourselves, but not every type of 'introspection' and 'alone time' is healthy... and its not something that you can do for too long to the exclusion of other life experiences. Balance is key.

I agree with balance is the key .. it's just that I've spent so many years balanced precariously the other way. It sort of feels refreshing to be looking inside. But I am well aware of the potential problems in staying inside your mind.

I think that if you are prone to depressive episodes then you need to be careful. That is how I used to fall down the rabbit hole in the first place.

But the last three years something has happened, and I don't and I sort of really relish the fact that I can delve deeply and resurface. It is refreshing. I will come back to earth one day and hopefully balance myself out, but for now I love the fact that I can do this without any consequences, where as before .. eek!
 
Just wondering if anyone else has noticed that there are so many people out there that react so negatively about loneliness and looking inside oneself? I have found myself that as long as you can work through the pain there is a lot of growth and learning that can be had from being alone as well as looking inside.

Loneliness is when you are alone and you don't like the company. A lot of people use others as a way of avoiding being alone because they are frightened of their own thoughts and feelings. For me, aloneness is solitude rather than isolation but I understand that this is the exception to the rule.

This doesn't mean that I don't need others...they just need to be the right others. I would rather be alone than with the wrong people...at least for any length of time...that's just too exhausting.
 
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Loneliness is when you are alone and you don't like the company. A lot of people use others as a way of avoiding being alone because they are frightened of their own thoughts and feelings. For me, aloneness is solitude rather than isolation but I understand that this is the exception to the rule.

This doesn't mean that I don't need others...they just need to be the right others. I would rather be alone than with the wrong people...at least for any length of time...that's just too exhausting.
You're picky? But that's a good thing right?
 
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Compatibility and a shared purpose trumps romance...No? One should never settle - in my humble opinion. I settled many times before I learned this hard lesson.

My life with the fairer sex! Picky - NO, discerning - YES! :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:

It's a longer and definitely harder road, and I have to believe it will work out for the best in the end .. it's all about living to your beliefs and values, and not sacrificing them simply because you don't want to be alone any more.

I've waivered on this many times. It is so hard. When you want to have a connection (a more intimate connection than with say friends etc) and you can't because you need to be "discerning". I think we are all victims of the "must have it now" mentality and to wait for something that is more right smacks nowadays of perhaps missing out instead on something that might have been "good enough"

That isn't for me .. I'm not asking for perfection, but I am asking for connection.

I was a poet didn't even know it :tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy::tearsofjoy:
 
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My mum used to chide me when I said I needed space and time to think. She always said it was "dangerous" to think too much.

Caesar:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 190–195
:tearsofjoy: All too true in this case. Typical extraverted tyrant ....

ust wondering if anyone else has noticed that there are so many people out there that react so negatively about loneliness and looking inside oneself? I have found myself that as long as you can work through the pain there is a lot of growth and learning that can be had from being alone as well as looking inside.

Oh yes! There's several reasons I can think of for it:
Herding: all that noise and extraversion is part of herd cohesion, and it's a vital survival instinct in the wild. When fully paid up herd members see an isolated sheep they will do their best to bring it into the safety of the herd. This is them being nice and protecting you - it doesn't occur to them that the herd is not a safe place for everyone.

Inferior Ni: Se is a tiring and mysterious place for dominant Nis, and can be filled with magic and threat. How much more frightening is Ni to dominant Ses. Most folks have Ni either as their inferior or one of their shadow functions. They don't just fail to understand it, it is beyond their comprehension - when they are exposed to it in some form, it seems chaotic, illogical, surreal, unreal and frightening. It may map straight onto their unconscious shadow, which they are then likely to project straight back onto us, and it disturbs the foundations of their world view, which is very possibly why it has been preserved in human communities ;). People don't express it in these sorts of terms but unconsciously they are repelled by it and repress it. INxJs occupy this terrifying space and because there are few of us we are almost always isolated to some extent, even in company.

Specific concerns about you: If you have suffered from depression and needed the support of friends and family in the past, and if your solitude is as much by circumstance as choice, then people who care for you will be worried that on your own you could spiral into dysfunction. There is no doubt that it is much easier to manage the risks of such illnesses and, if they hit you, emerge from them if you are not living alone - as long as you are in the right company.

The existential challenges of deep introspection: Not sure if anyone has expressed concerns here. My own experience is that inner space has its own objectivity as big as the outer world. Setting off to explore it carries equivalent risks and dangers to exploring the outer world - more so in a way because the outer world is much better known than each of our inner worlds, and our inner eyes are far less clear and reliable than our outer ones. Most people only paddle in the shallows - deep sea diving into our selves is an amazing experience but one which utterly changes us. Go for it if you are drawn by it - you only live once and this is as great an adventure as climbing one of the worlds great mountains, or relocating to an unfamiliar culture .... but be willing to accept the risks because they are real.
One of the best pieces of advice I came across about all this is from a parallel to your question. It was written by a contemplative monk in the 14th Century - he was talking about the censure that contemplatives received from the the active, extraverted religious communities who accused them of locking themselves away in what was seen as unhealthy, isolated non-participation. What he said was that these active guys had no way of ever comprehending what contemplatives are and how they approach God - their attitude should be treated with compassion and just set aside without becoming annoyed, involved and debating with them. The censure was a trivial irritation compared with the adventure of the contemplative journey. For peace of mind, this sounds like good advice to me .... not that you are talking about that degree of solitude (?) :D
 
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