The Best Books Are Thin

I've recently come to the conclusion that thin books are underrated. They are easily overlooked on the shelf. (Thick books command more attention there, and their elevated page count promises a more long-lasting experience.)

Loneliness by Clark E. Moustakas (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961) which I am about to discuss here is a prime example of less being more. I found it at the dump a number of years ago. Due, no doubt, to its rather bland cover art and unappealing title, it was relegated to a box in the attic where I recently re-discovered it. And I count myself very fortunate that I did. It starts off with this poem by Laurens van der Post:

Get ready to weep tears of sorrow
as bright as the brightest beads,
and like the bright beads you string
to wear round your throat at the burial,
gather your tears and string them
on a thread of your memory to wear around
your heart or its shattered fragments
will never come whole again.

Now, I generally do not enjoy poetry but that one really grabs me! Then, in the dedication, the author makes mention of "the infinite loneliness of the unique" and the thought came to me that perhaps it is this feeling of uniqueness (which the artistic person uses as a springboard to creating) that is at the root of the condition. I'm going to quote Moustakas at length because so much of what he writes feels absolutely true for me.

. . . loneliness is a condition of human life, an experience of being human which enables the individual to sustain, extend, and deepen his humanity. . . Efforts to overcome or escape the existential experience of loneliness can result only in self-alienation. . . no person can remain unchanged once he opens himself to loneliness and surrenders himself to the terror and beauty of a totally isolated existence. . . When someone cares enough to see into the deepest roots of one's nature, though it is heart-rending to be known in this naked sense, it brings the deepest measure of unique and thrilling sensations. . . all creations in some way spring from solitude, meditation, and isolation. [from the Preface]

In a chapter titled "The Experience of Being Lonely," Moustakas writes:

There is a power in loneliness, a purity, self-immersion, and depth which is unlike any other experience. Being lonely is such a total, direct, vivid experience, so deeply felt, so startingly different, that there is no room for any other perception, feeling, or awareness. [p.8]

In "Concepts of Loneliness" he makes the distinction between existential loneliness and loneliness anxiety.

The loneliness of modern life may be considered in two ways: the existential loneliness which inevitably is part of human experience, and the loneliness of self-alienation and self-rejection which is not loneliness at all but a vague and disturbing anxiety. Existential loneliness is an intrinsic and organic reality of human life in which there is both pain and triumphant creation emerging out of long periods of desolation. . . Loneliness anxiety results from a fundamental breach between what one is and what one pretends to be, . . . The emphasis on conformity, following directions, imitation, being like others, striving for power and status, increasingly alienates man from himself. . . Perhaps the loneliness of a meaningless existence, the absence of values, convictions, beliefs, and the fear of isolation are the most terrible kind of loneliness anxiety. . . It is a type of chronic illness which debilitates the person and stifles any emergence of self or realization of capacities and talents. . . In attempting to overcome loneliness anxiety, the individual sometimes gives up his individuality and submerges himself in dependency relationships. . . It is possible to live too much in the world, to try to escape loneliness by constant talk, by surrounding one's self with others, by modeling one's life from people in authority or with high status. . . Everything is geared toward filling and killing time to avoid feeling the emptiness of life and the vague dissatisfaction of acquiring possessions, gaining status and power, and behaving in appropriate and approved ways. The escape from loneliness is actually an escape from facing the fear of loneliness. [pp. 24-32]

Isn't that profound: the escape from facing the fear of loneliness! I have been so guilty of trying to do just that. But having made the realization, I am set free. I will close with some quotations on loneliness of the second, and more "genuine" type: existential loneliness.

In contrast to the loneliness anxiety of modern life is the inevitable, real loneliness of genuine experience. . . It takes creative courage to accept the inevitable, existential loneliness of life, to face one's essential loneliness openly and honestly. It requires inner fortitude not to be afraid or overwhelmed with the fear of being and the fear of being alone. . . Its fear, evasion, denial, and the accompanying attempts to escape the experience of being lonely will forever isolate the person from his own existence, will afflict and separate him from his own resources so that there is no development, no creative emergence, no growth in awareness, perception, sensitivity. . . Ultimately each man is alone but when the individual maintains a truthful self-identity, such isolation is strengthening and induces deeper sensitivities and awareness. In contrast, self-alienation and estrangement drive one to avoid separation. The fear of loneliness is a sickness which promotes dehumanization and insensitivity. In the extreme, the person stops feeling altogether and tries to live solely by rational means and cognitive directions. This is the terrible tragedy of modern life--the alienation of man from his own feelings, . . . the fear of man to experience his own loneliness and pain. . . [Thomas] Wolfe believed that loneliness is an essential condition of creativity, that out of the depths of grief, despair, and the shattering feeling of total impotency springs the urge to create new forms and images and to discover unique ways of being aware and expressing experience. [pp. 33-35]

I will write further on Loneliness by Clark E. Moustakas in another post. Part two will be concerned with loneliness in childhood, and how isolation formed the creative life of the poet Emily Dickinson.